White Men Still Dominate CEO Offices at Big Charities

Chronicle illustration by Ron Coddington

Despite the push by foundations and nonprofits to focus on diverse leadership, America’s biggest charities continue to be overwhelmingly led by white men, according to a Chronicle analysis.

People of color are now better represented among the CEOs of the nation’s 100 largest charities compared with a decade ago, but they are still severely underrepresented when compared with the national population. And women have made barely perceptible advances.

While nonprofits are doing better in diversifying the CEO’s office than America’s largest businesses, the slow progress comes at a time when many of the nation’s philanthropies and many activists and workers are urging nonprofits to make sure their work forces look more like America’s changing population. That’s especially essential at the top, advocates say, because solving problems involves understanding the issues all Americans face.

Here’s a look at the key takeaways from the Chronicle analysis.

YMCA OF THE USA

Leaders of Color Make Gains

Thirteen people of color hold the top job at the biggest nonprofits. That’s compared with just five when we conducted a similar study a decade ago.

Six of the nonprofit executives are African American, six are Hispanic, and one is Asian American.

Still, that’s a far cry from the proportion of people of color in the population.

Blacks account for 12.5 percent of the population while more than 18 percent of Americans are Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the biggest of the organizations we examined that has a person of color at the top: She is Nicole Taylor. And her organization is also the biggest with a female CEO.

Kevin Washington, a black man who heads the Y, says the organization’s extensive work to cultivate and train people of color is a key reason it is doing better than many others in diversifying its executive ranks. Nine percent of regional Y CEOs are people of color, with 11 added in 2019 alone.

“We realized investing in those individuals gave us a pipeline for minorities and diverse populations to move up the ladder, and they stay with us longer,” said Washington.

A Glass Ceiling Persists for Women

Twenty-nine of America’s biggest nonprofits are run by women, compared with 27 a decade ago.

American Kidney Fund

What’s so stunning about the lack of progress is that women dominate the leadership of small charities. According to BoardSource’s most recent survey of 1,380 nonprofits, most of which are small and medium-size organizations, 72 percent were led by women.

One of the women in a top role today, LaVarne Burton, chief executive of the American Kidney Fund, says she’s troubled that she doesn’t have more time to encourage her own organization to focus on promoting more women and people of color. “It is difficult for any one organization — even mine, for example — to really have the resources or the time to focus on this kind of issue,” she said.

Boards Lack Racial Diversity

Leaders in the nonprofit world say much of the blame for the slow progress women and people of color have made should be placed on boards.

SILICON VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

But boards themselves have done little to diversify in terms of race. According to the latest figures, 84 percent of board members and 90 percent of board chairs are white. One in four boards is composed entirely of whites. Those figures have remained virtually unchanged in two decades of studies.

Women are doing better: They make up 48 percent of boards. Women’s relative parity as board members, however, only further underscores their lack of representation in the chief executive seat.

Young-Joo Lee, director of the master’s program in nonprofit management at the University of Central Florida, who has studied the progress of women in leadership roles, found that organizations where women make up one third to one half of the board are more likely to have a female CEO compared with other groups. Lee believes a similar effect could be seen for other groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities.

Big Business Has a Worse Record

Despite the lack of progress, America’s largest charities are doing better than the business world.

Only nine of the 100 biggest U.S. companies, as ranked by Fortune magazine, are led by women, and only three Fortune 100 companies are led by African Americans. Fortune does not provide data on the number of Asian or Hispanic CEOs.

Many Charities Lack Transparency About Diversity

The Chronicle based its study on the charities that raise the most from individuals, foundations, and companies (excluding product donations and gifts from donor-advised funds). Forty-one of the 100 organizations were colleges.

The group studied a decade ago was somewhat different because we looked at contributions of all kinds to rank charities — including donated food, relief supplies, and gifts from donor-advised funds. Still, both samples were among the wealthiest nonprofits in America.

In reporting, we found that many nonprofits were unwilling to disclose the race or ethnicity of their leaders. Some cited policies on disclosing that information about any employee; others refused to answer multiple calls and email messages seeking to verify what we could learn from public sources. And a few that said that they were forbidden from telling us about the ethnicity or race of their chief executive still steered us to useful sources of information that would help us confirm our findings.

Michael Theis writes about data and accountability for the Chronicle, conducting surveys and reporting on fundraising, giving, salaries, taxes, and more. He recently surveyed pay packages at charities and found wide disparities in base salaries and bonuses among nonprofit causes. Email Michael or follow him on Twitter. Jimena Faz Garza is a former editorial intern.