Giving Compass' Take:
- The COVID-19 pandemic is stretching nonprofits to their limits, especially those run by people of color and the communities they aim to serve. With compounding social and economic crises, BIPOC leaders will feel the effects of these dilemmas and their negative outcomes.
- What support systems do BIPOC leaders have? How is your charitable giving supporting nonprofit organizations with BIPOC leadership?
- Learn how nonprofit boards can support leaders of color.
What is Giving Compass?
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Many businesses around the globe have demonstrated adaptability and resilience as they faced the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some companies, often led by their employees, have also had somewhat of a role in supporting the uprising against police brutality and systemic racism. Others have been a model on how to navigate through crisis, as with Intel activating its in-house pandemic response team. Then we have other industries that just come across as looking out for themselves, as in the measures airlines have taken to lobby for increased government bailouts.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit sector is struggling, and it doesn’t have the financial largess and political connections needed to allow these organizations to help people who need assistance the most.
To that end, new research from the nonprofit activator Building Movement Project (BMP) illuminates the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and systemic racism on the nonprofit sector. BMP shares the voices and experiences of more than 400 nonprofit executive directors and CEOs of color in its latest report, which the group issued earlier this month.
The report’s findings show that nonprofits run by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) have been disproportionately affected by social upheaval and COVID-19, cautioning that leaders in the field fear the worst is yet to come.
Job losses and funding cuts in the nonprofit sector threaten to worsen the racial wealth gap in the United States; the result could cost the economy more than $1 trillion in the next 10 years, according to recent estimates by McKinsey. And the affects will hit communities of color particularly hard.
Nonprofit organizations led by people of color are generally under-resourced, with less staff and fewer financial resources than those led by their white counterparts. That gap has been exacerbated since the start of the pandemic. At the same time, the BMP report indicates many of these nonprofits have also been showing up at the front lines to lead the sector’s response through advocacy, coalition-building, and organizing in support of anti-racism, equity and social justice.
Read the full article about impact of COVID-19 on nonprofit leaders of color by Amelia Ahl at TriplePundit.