Race to Lead:

Confronting the Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap

To increase the number of people of color leading nonprofits, the sector needs a new narrative about the problem and new strategies to address it. Nonprofits have to transfer the responsibility for the racial leadership gap from those who are targeted by it (aspiring leaders of color), to those governing organizations.

Key Findings

Featured Data

82% of survey respondents agree

that the low percentage of nonprofit leaders of color in top organizational roles is a problem for the nonprofit sector.

Recent News

What It Looks Like to Build a Pro-Black Organization
Nonprofit Quarterly

Amilcar Cabral, Pan African leader of the Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde national independence struggle, wrote and spoke extensively about the need to fight for tangible, material changes for our...

For first Black, nonbinary GLSEN leader, intersectionality is key
Los Angeles Blade

She’s experienced both the “superpower of invisibility” & the “superpower of being deeply connected to those who are...

If You Want to Hire an Executive Director of Color, Don’t Set Us Up to Fail
Chronicle of Philanthropy

Four years ago, I became the first woman of color to lead the Alliance for Youth Organizing. I was a 33-year-old Latina and first-time executive director with limited fundraising experience...

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Citations

Kunreuther, Frances and Sean Thomas-Breitfeld (2017). Race to Lead: Confronting the Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap.