What Leadership Looks Like In Color
By Starsha Valentine
Partner and Mid-Atlantic Managing Director
We’ve all seen the headlines across numerous journals: Black-led nonprofit organizations receive less funding, grow at a slower pace, and are under-resourced compared to their white-led peers.
As recently as 2019, Echoing Green and Bridgespan’s Racial Equity and Philanthropy report found that “...on average the revenues of the Black-led organizations are 24 percent smaller than the revenues of their white-led counterparts. When it comes to the holy grail of financial support— unrestricted funding—the picture is even bleaker. The unrestricted net assets of the Black-led organizations are 76 percent smaller than their white-led counterparts. The stark disparity in unrestricted assets is particularly startling as such funding often represents a proxy for trust.”
But the disparity goes beyond just dollars and cents. Despite concerted efforts to shift power to more leaders of color, The Building Movement Project’s Trading Glass Ceilings for Glass Cliffs report shows that newly appointed nonprofit executives of color felt that they “did not have the same support as their white counterparts when they entered their roles.” They were often tasked with major restructuring or cleaning up the mess from the previous leadership while being paid less for their work.
Many leaders of color have had to be uniquely resourceful in order to further their mission and goals. For many, taking a community-asset-building approach has allowed them to lean into mutually beneficial relationships. They are able to build connections with peers, neighbors, youth, and others to design solutions that are inclusive and effective. When asked how she uniquely leads as a Black woman, Jhae Thompson, Executive Director of Community Youth Advance (CYA), has leaned into “creating a space of learning, accountability, and opportunity.” She recognizes that holding space for young professionals to advance ensures that the future of the work continues to be led by other leaders of color.
Chris Bradshaw, founder and executive director of DC social enterprise, Dreaming Out Loud (DOL), partners with other well-resourced organizations such as World Central Kitchen and DC Central Kitchen to build capacity for programming and outreach. By partnering with local churches, schools, and community centers, DOL is able to amplify its reach to more neighborhoods across the District, increasing access to healthy food. By leaning into these models of resource development, leaders of color disrupt the traditional leadership paradigm and build a new approach to effective leadership; one that is collaborative, resourceful, and impactful.
The Leadership in Color series will highlight ways leaders of color can and have built innovative approaches to leadership in their organizations. By sharing their stories of resilience, we hope to inspire solutions for the next generation of social impact leaders.