Giving Compass' Take:

• Kristina Gawrgy Campbell at Independent Sector interviewed Ofronama Biu, senior research associate at Building Movement Project, about the challenges for women of color in the nonprofit sector. 

• What are ways that funders and nonprofit leaders can become more aware and address these issues for women of color?

• Read more about why we are still struggling with diversity in nonprofit governance. 

New research always makes headlines, but as an organization that is committed to results-driven decision making, racial equity, and nonprofit leadership and capacity, we pay particular attention to new work from the Building Movement Project (BMP). BMP released their first Race to Lead report in 2017 based on their research on the racial leadership gap in the nonprofit sector. Since 2017, they have released reports about nonprofit staff that self-identified as part of the LGBTQ community, and those who worked in California and Massachusetts.

We spoke with Ofronama Biu, senior research associate at Building Movement Project, who provided some context around why this research is unique and particularly impactful for a sector that is majority women.

KGC: Since the initial release of the Race to Lead report in 2017, Building Movement Project has released subsequent research on the racial leadership gap among various communities and explored some of those intersectionalities. Tell me why it was important for BMP to focus on women of color for its most recent report?

OB: The first report focused on people of color and all white respondents and we saw some big disparities between these two groups. But we know that the combination of different identities—for example race and gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation—has a compounding effect. So the experiences of oppression for all people of color will not be the same, nor will the experiences for all LGBTQ individuals.

KGC: What were the key takeaways of how women of color fare in the nonprofit sector?

OB: One key finding is that women of color were the most likely to say that race had a negative impact on their careers (more so than men of color) and also the most likely to say gender had a negative impact (more so than white women).

Read the full article about challenges for women of color in the nonprofit sector by Kristina Gawrgy Campbell at Independent Sector