Four years ago I wrote about why women of color are extraordinarily tired. The essay — one of the first of many to focus on the pervasive exhaustion facing women like me — attracted considerable buzz.
Soon after it was published, we went into lockdown.
At the time, I was executive director of New American Leaders, a nonprofit I founded to train immigrants to run for public office. In that role, I routinely spent two to three nights a week away on work trips. But all of that abruptly came to a halt in mid-March 2020 when the pandemic shifted my focus to the health and well-being of my staff, family, and community. With that shift came unexpected opportunities for rest and reflection.
Even as we navigated fear and loss, many of us were able to let go of especially taxing elements of our work — travel, commuting, nightly events.
Today, for good and bad, that world now seems like a distant memory. We’re back to pre-pandemic levels of activity — the merry-go-round of conferences, galas, and travel; that feeling that we need to see and be seen to stay relevant and raise money. The old refrain — “I’m exhausted, running on fumes, so tired” — is louder than ever.
This all feels unsustainable. But what will it take to permanently change these unhealthy and ultimately unproductive patterns?
Let’s start by recognizing how we got here in the first place. In addition to the pandemic, I believe three major shifts have accelerated the exhaustion cycle since 2020.
First, the roller-coaster ride of racial justice and equity giving since George Floyd’s murder left us buoyed by initial funding commitments, then deflated by the reality of unfulfilled pledges by foundations and corporations, including a 32 percent drop in racial equity giving since 2021 by Fortune 1,000 companies.
Nonprofits and movements led by and supporting people of color are no strangers to fickle grant makers. But the disappointment felt especially acute when dollars failed to materialize after the initial rush of enthusiasm and pledges. Now we seem to be back at square one, forced to limit our vision to the next payroll cycle rather than disrupting the status quo.
Second, leaders of color are grappling with organizational challenges as staff demand higher pay and a greater role in decision making, including efforts to unionize nonprofits. Even when such action is warranted, leaders can feel personally attacked.
Quiet Quitting Fallacy
Third, calls to rest and “quiet quit” fail to acknowledge our reality as women of color. How is it possible to pause when our very existence is at stake?
We often enter predominantly white organizations hoping, and invited, to be the voice of change. But when we speak out against tokenism or demand accountability on equity, the support and high hopes quickly evaporate. Recent high-profile resignations such as that of Harvard University President Claudine Gay and the suicide of Antoinette Candia-Bailey, vice president of student affairs at Lincoln University, are reminders of how challenging the workplace can be for women of color and especially Black women.
Karla Monterroso, a Los-Angeles based leadership coach and founder of Brava Leaders, told me that women of color aren’t giving themselves “space to grieve the cumulative experiences of the past few years,” even as they are destroying us. Research on women of color in the workplace indicates that stress like this shows up as lack of energy, a racing heart, and chronic illness.
Indeed, women of color are drawn to social-justice work by the desire to change the systems that don’t serve our communities. Yet when confronted with obstacles, we are quick to blame ourselves instead of looking at root causes of dissatisfaction among our staff or limitations within philanthropy.
Many women of color lead nonprofits, especially the smallest organizations. An estimated 28 percent of those with budgets below $50,000 have women of color at the helm, according to an analysis by Candid that was shared with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The analysis was based on data Candid received from 50,000 nonprofits during the past five years.
Given this, the well-being of these leaders should be a philanthropic priority. At its most basic level, that means giving our organizations the funding they need to succeed, valuing our time, and respecting our desire to work in our communities and stay home, rather than being on a constant roadshow to raise money.
Grant makers can help us further by supporting a few meaningful strategies that reimagine what leadership can look like:
Provide opportunities to gather with peers. For women of color, meeting with peers and sharing how we feel often seems less urgent than the work at hand, especially since many of us already see each other at community events, legislative hearings, and conferences. But these work gatherings are no substitute for retreats specifically designed to nourish our bodies and souls with rest, reflection, and relationship building.
I’ve held many such retreats and witnessed first-hand their deep effect as women of color build community and grapple with common challenges in a beautiful and nurturing setting. By encouraging and funding these opportunities, donors send a signal that they are committed to our humanity and our leadership for the long term.
Embrace different leadership models. Co-leadership approaches are an increasingly appealing alternative for women of color because they directly address the problems of exhaustion and isolation. Grant makers can support these arrangements by providing general operating funds to cover the higher salaries required for co-leaders, pay for coaching that helps co-leaders adapt to their roles , and hire more senior staff who can share management responsibilities.
Engage with other staff — not just leaders. Too many grant makers expect to have contact solely with an organization’s executive director. This puts enormous pressure on one person and is both unsustainable and short-sighted. Instead, donors should be more open to engaging with other staff members. This spreads the opportunities for travel and public speaking beyond one charismatic executive director and supports the development of a leadership pipeline.
While this is a call to women of color leaders, it’s also a call to our families, our friends, and our donors to recognize the gaps in funding, to acknowledge what it takes to do this work, and to support us in making our mental, physical, and emotional health a priority. We want to stick with this work for the long haul, but we need your support to make it happen.
