MacArthur’s Choice of a White Man With a Pedigree Set Back the Fight on Racial Equity

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The MacArthur Foundation had an opportunity to break with philanthropy’s elitist origins when it selected its new president.

Instead, it doubled down on pedigree.

In choosing the leader of one of the nation’s most prestigious prep schools — and the great-great grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt — MacArthur followed an all-too-predictable route.

Yes, John Palfrey has the sparkling resume needed to lead a foundation with an endowment approaching $6.5 billion and one of philanthropy’s most recognizable brand names. And soon after the announcement, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker declared that Palfrey has been a great “white ally” in the fight for racial equity.

But at a time when philanthropy is coming to grips with the fact that it cannot fully advance racial equity until it first tackles the issue in its offices and boardrooms, the MacArthur Foundation’s choice shows us that progress is not coming quickly enough.

This criticism is not aimed at Palfrey himself. He had every right to pursue and accept the position. And powerful white allies are helpful and necessary.

But until we have more leaders who reflect the people and causes they serve, we’re simply reinforcing many of the same patterns that have slowed progress for decades.

Not surprisingly, many nonprofits recognize the need to improve diversity among their trustees and other leaders but lack the patience, commitment, and knowledge, and, in some cases, the resources and networks necessary to do the hard work that’s needed to create real, lasting change.

That’s why large foundations like MacArthur — which lacks neither resources nor knowledge — must lead the way.

Finding Talent in Unexpected Places

Several of its peer organizations are already proving that it’s possible.

When the Silicon Valley Community Foundation named Nicole Taylor as its top executive in November, it selected a smart and bold leader to help it chart a new course.

But while Taylor’s experience in philanthropy made her a logical choice to lead the nation’s largest community foundation, that wasn’t the story back in 2007, when Taylor, a nonprofit executive, was hired for the same role at the East Bay Community Foundation.

As an African-American woman who hadn’t yet turned 40, Taylor didn’t look like many of her older, white male peers who ran community foundations. But East Bay was committed to making sure it stretched beyond traditional candidates, following equally traditional career paths.

Because of that, it discovered Taylor, a former public-school teacher in Oakland who had once served in a junior role at the foundation but had no previous experience leading community foundations. Taylor proved to be a great choice — one who might not have been considered for East Bay’s top job had it not been committed to racial equity. And it put her in a position to ultimately lead the nation’s largest community foundation 12 years later. (As a disclosure, our firm placed her at East Bay Community Foundation.)

During the past 15 years, I have been encouraged by seeing a new generation of leaders take the helm at some of the nation’s most prominent foundations.

Just look at some of the new faces who have been hired recently to lead some of the nation’s largest community foundations — the Chicago Community Trust’s Helene Gayle, Baltimore Community Foundation’s Shanaysha Sauls, and Hartford Foundation for Public Giving’s Jay Williams. (Our firm also led the search for the Baltimore Community Foundation.)

We’re also seeing glimmers of hope in other parts of the philanthropic world as organizations where leaders at the helm are making huge strides in diversity and inclusion. Examples are Michelle DePass, CEO of the Meyer Memorial Trust, Maurice Green, executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, and Karen McNeil-Miller, CEO of the Colorado Health Foundation. (We also led the search at the Meyer Memorial Trust.)

Plenty of Top People Are Available

Yet despite these steps forward, the need for more diversity among nonprofit leaders remains significant. To fulfill their missions, nonprofits and foundations need more women, more people who identify as LGBTQ, more people with disabilities, more Native Americans, and the list goes on.

Real fundamental change simply cannot occur in the nonprofit world if our leaders do not reflect the communities they serve — and if those working in more junior-level positions cannot bring diversity of thought and experiences to their day-to-day work.

Often we hear organizations complain that there aren’t enough diverse candidates to fill their openings.

But to me, that’s a cop-out. They just aren’t looking hard enough.

So how do we once and for all bury the excuses and open our eyes to the possibilities? These three steps offer a good start:

Face the fact that we still do not have enough people from diverse backgrounds serving on boards. Foundations and nonprofits need to adopt a more deliberate approach off the beaten path to identify board-level leaders who aren’t all cut from the same traditional cloth.

Keep going when you’re searching for the right fit to lead your organization. If the right candidates aren’t applying, expand your search. You can look in unexpected places, such as immigrant and refugee support organizations, ethnic affinity groups or other networks where people gather. The key in a search is to be open-minded and look as broadly as you can, not foreclosing any option until it’s time.

Set bold, long-term goals — and be deliberate in achieving them. The journey to building a more diverse nonprofit world is long — but if you want to see progress in 10 years, you have to start now.

The journey starts with the organizations that have the resources to lead this change — institutions like the MacArthur Foundation need to use their power to reset the tone for other groups rather than repeat the same patterns.

The time to take the safe, predictable path is over. Let’s choose progress over pedigree.

Vincent Robinson is founder and managing partner of the 360 Group, an executive search firm that places leaders at foundations and nonprofits.