Giving Compass' Take:
- Here are critical insights into how women of color can access high-quality professional development opportunities and why they deserve them.
- What biases across the social sector still exist that thwart the growth of women of color to rise to leadership positions?
- Read more on why you should invest in Black women nonprofit leaders.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Throughout my 10-year career in the nonprofit sector, working as a program director in youth development and later as an operations director in philanthropy, professional development has often entailed a one- to two-hour webinar on cultivating relationships or a half-day session on best practices in program management and has always felt like punishment from those in charge. Such programs remind me of required summer reading—something to keep you busy that instructors never revisit during the school year.
The mandated “opportunities” are mainly designed to point out potential areas of improvement or “growth” for employees—but not management.
Meanwhile, those professional development sessions took valuable hours out of my workday. As a direct service provider, I knew that the clients I served would need me during those hours, and if I stepped away from my desk or phone, their needs wouldn’t be met. Losing those hours also meant that I would be working additional hours from home later that night.
It is difficult to take many of the trainings seriously when you know beforehand that the bulk of the information will not change the current policies or operating procedures of the organization.
Professional development—when administered with depth and understanding of these hurdles—is essential to career growth. When you devote time to step away from your work to learn and hone your skills, you become a better, more effective professional. While a best practice in one organization may not necessarily translate exactly to another, the process of research, analysis, discussion, critical thinking, and discussion is key to organizational and personal growth.
What is clear to me is that a specific space has to be created in these workshops for women of color to connect and share, independent of White women. It is simply a fact that our experience is and will likely always be uniquely different from that of other races and genders.
Another key takeaway is that networking is key to your success. I met some amazing women of all races that I stay connected with on LinkedIn. I see and am inspired by the career moves that they are making. I even reached out to one of them for support after resigning from my most recent position in philanthropy. I am truly rooting for them and them for me. However, my lunch partners, my fellow women of color in the cohort, were honest and vulnerable. I appreciate the safe space that was created and the candor that was shared.
My final takeaway is that women of color need professional development spaces designed specifically for us. We need to connect and be in community with women who look like us and who share the same workplace struggles. Our workplace experiences are different from those of White women, and we have to be ok with acknowledging that ourselves, being vocal, and unapologetically making others aware as well. Most importantly, we have to come together from a place of vulnerability, restoration, and healing so we can go back to our respective workplaces and keep doing the work that we do.
Read the full article about professional development for women of color by Jamie Ricks at Nonprofit Quarterly .