EPISODE 53:
Mary Morten: Welcome to another episode of “Gathering Ground.” I'm Mary Morten. And this time, I had the chance to bring Building Movement Project Co-Executive Director and “Gathering Ground” regular Sean Thomas-Breitfeld back to the podcast, this time with his co-director, Frances Kunreuther, to discuss the most recent Race to Lead report: “The Push and Pull: Declining Interest in Nonprofit Leadership.”
Building Movement Project’s Race to Lead reports have always been full of eye-opening data and validating insights, revealing the twists and turns of BIPOC leadership in the social impact sector. “The Push and Pull” is no different, so get ready for a deep dive into the nuances of the nonprofit leadership landscape and enjoy my conversation with Sean and Frances.!
Welcome to “Gathering Ground”!
Frances Kunreuther: So happy to be here.
Mary Morten: Great to see you both.
And Frances, would love to just give our listeners a little bit of your story in terms of how you got here, because, as I had mentioned before, Sean is our most often guest on “Gathering Ground,” which has been great, but would love to hear a little about your background, just so our listeners have a little context for your work.
Frances Kunreuther: Well, again, just thank you, Mary. It's such a pleasure to be on your podcast! I feel so honored.
You know, it's interesting because I started out working in social services and I think it gave me a really good background for the work that we do now, because I've worked with very early on — before we had the word domestic violence, people who were experiencing violence, before there were things like orders of protection in court, when nobody believed women who were coming in and what was happening to them, with sexual assault survivors, and that background and having a feminist perspective in a society, and a race-based perspective, really informed my work. And I'm so glad I did that for many years.
My last service job was running an organization for LGBTQ youth in New York called the Hetrick-Martin Institute and I was taking over from founders, one who had died and one who was sick with HIV and AIDS, and again, it was an amazing opportunity for me to see the intersection between advocacy, organizing, and service delivery. We worked with young youth of color, and the communities of color were being decimated, but it wasn't visible, and so how did we raise the visibility of populations who were being infected with HIV before we knew what it was, before there were treatments, who were dying, that were getting so little money or attention in their work? And then I had an amazing experience. I got a fellowship from a foundation, landed at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard, and that's where I started Building Movement. But again, I looked around me at Harvard and they were talking to the Nature Conservancy and the American Red Cross, very important organizations, but I was like, where are my people? And so it was bringing people together to start BMP.
Mary Morten: Wonderful.
And Sean, just as a reminder, when did you join BMP?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: So I first joined BMP as a member of the advisory board, but then I transitioned into staff roles, sharing leadership with Frances 10 years ago, and so Frances and I have been co-executive directors of the organization for the past 10 years, and prior to that, Frances — the sort of founding of BMP we traced back to 25 years ago in a meeting that she organized in 1999, and it's now 2024. So we're celebrating the organization's 25th year right now.
Mary Morten: Wonderful. Congratulations! Really, really important work, and work, I have to say, that I reference often. When we were recording a podcast just in the last day or so, I absolutely talked about this data. And so let's get into it, because you have new data that is being released, which I'm really excited about. And so this is the third iteration of Race to Lead, which has collectively resulted in eight reports, including your most recent one. Why was it important to revisit the survey and collect new data over time?
Who would like to respond to that? Frances, why don't you go?
Frances Kunreuther: Yeah, why don't I start?
One of the things that we realized after the first Race to Lead report is that we could identify structural barriers to — facing people of color to advance to leadership positions, and we wanted to know if that changed over time. The report made a big splash, but as we know, Mary — and you know better than anyone else — big splashes don't result in change, many, many times. People talk about it and then it goes away, and it's like we solved the problem because we're not talking about it anymore. And Sean and I felt it was important to kind of follow up with what was happening. That was one reason. A second reason was because new things happened in the sector. For example, our second Race to Lead survey focused on two additional things: diversity, equity, and inclusion, what was happening in organizations — that was in 2019 — and we were also looking at the racial composition of the leadership of organizations, saying, how do people fare in organizations that are white-dominant versus POC-dominant? And so that really gave us some additional data to explain what was happening in the field. And this time, again, we want to know what's happening, but we also wanted to know what's been changing since, you know, the great 2020 year, the pandemic, the uprisings, the great resignation, all of the changes that have happened in the sector. How is that impacting leadership and the way people of color and white people are experiencing our organizations?
Mary Morten: Sean, did you want to add anything to that?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: I think Frances really covered it. I think the one thing that I would add is that, you know, we did the survey first in 2016, then again in 2019, and then in 2022, right? So every three years. And so, you know, looking forward to surveying again in 2025. And so part of what happens, as we maintain some questions consistent but then are adding new questions to be responsive to what's changing in the sector, as Frances was describing, like, we're getting a picture at a point in time, right, and we're seeing how the sector is evolving and we're also seeing how — what is not changing. (Laughs.) Right? So, you know, just one example: A key question from the very first survey was we asked people whether their race had positively or negatively impacted their advancement in the sector. And when we first asked that question in 2016, we were shocked that a third of people of color were saying that it had negatively impacted their advancement. Like, we thought that was high. 2019, it had bumped up to half, right, saying that their race had negatively impacted their advancement, and then stayed flat since then, right? So, you know, it's interesting, right? Like, what — there's questions that it raises, right, around what kind of negative experiences were people having between 2016 and 2019, but also what possible consciousness-raising was happening during that period of time, as well, that helped people recontextualize past experiences that they had read as race-neutral but then understood to be racially loaded. And, you know, I think that there have been moments where consciousness has shifted and the hope is that we continue to be able to see those pivot points in the sector by continuing to gather this data, continuing to analyze this data, and continuing to really delve into what the numbers are telling us, but also, what are people telling us through their write-in responses, through interviews, through focus groups? Like it's — both things really help us have a fuller understanding.
Mary Morten: So did you do anything different in how you collected the data between 2019 and 2022? Did you go about it in the same way? Did you employ some new strategies around data collection? Because, you know, the world, as you know, is a different place, right, as a result of the pandemic.
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: I'll just say, I mean, I think we found in 2022 that the concerns about survey fatigue were real, and, you know, I think that that's something that we heard from peer organizations that are also trying to gather survey responses to inform research on the sector. So, you know, I think it's maybe more a question moving forward, like, what are the ways that, you know, as a sector we can gather information to have a real picture of those sector at a particular point in time, because I think the number of surveys have increased, you know, maybe somewhat inspired — (laughs) — by the success of the Race to Lead Survey back in 2016. But, you know, we still have a robust sample, still able to really delve deep. We know that the data is statistically significant. All of those things are still very much reassuring.
Mary Morten: I was just going to say, before you respond, Frances, that I certainly know that we were able to participate in getting the survey out in a different way than we have been in the past, just because I think we had more of a runway on how to do it, so that may have been the same for a number of groups.
And, Frances, what would you add?
Frances Kunreuther: I would say that the one thing we need to consider, as we move forward into the next survey for 2025, is how do we go down to line staff? I think that we're good at reaching senior staff and executive directors, even more so in 2022, and that's great, and we know that there's so many struggles that line staff are having in these jobs, and it would be great to figure out new ways to distribute the survey to those that we aren't reaching. And that may be possible, it may not be, but it might mean really finding out where they look for and get their information. I mean, we've been very heavy in social media. We've been good — we have a robust mailing list. People like you, Mary, and others have have sent it out to their constituencies. And there's still more we can do.
Mary Morten: And so right now, why do you think folks beyond senior team folks are not responding to it? Is it how it's targeted, or just access, or —
Frances Kunreuther: I think, first of all, it's hard to get to line staff, period. They're not looking at Building Movement Project on their Instagram; they're looking at something else. That's what we have to figure out. What are they looking at and how do you go through there? We know what the senior leadership is looking at, and they do know us, so we're showing up in their feeds.
I think the other thing is is that we don't — you know, except for some of the unionization, they're not really organizations of line staff. They're organizations that leaders belong to, or leaders go to conferences or leaders are on different list serves. The line staff often aren't on those. We do reach out through social work networks. That's one place that you might find a nonprofit staffer, but I think it's very hard, because of the lack of organization, to know where to reach those that haven't been seeing the survey in the past.
Mary Morten: And wouldn't it be nice if those who are in senior leadership would make it available to their team members, right? That would be the easiest way for it to happen.
Frances Kunreuther: I so agree with you, and we've tried. “Please share this.” That just doesn't seem to happen, Mary, and it is — you put your finger on the problem right there.
Mary Morten: Well, let's get into the data. I really want to talk about what you've observed and the headlines, the highlights of the 2022 data collection. So where would you like to start? What do you think has been most either surprising or, you know, to your point, Sean, in some cases you've seen the continuation of some themes. Where shall we start?
Frances Kunreuther: Well, let's just start with the headline, which is the report is called “The Push and Pull: Declining Interest in Nonprofit Leadership,” and that's the big headline, that fewer people who are not currently executive directors or chief executive officers are interested in leading. And that number has kind of gradually gone down in each survey for white respondents, but what really concerned us is it went up between 2016 and 2019 for BIPOC respondents and then it had quite a large drop to be the lowest it's been across the three surveys. So our question was, why is that and what can we learn, and how do we extend the attractiveness of the leadership jobs so that we have these wonderful people who work in the sector want to also lead organizations?
Mary Morten: And with that being the headline, if you will, what more do we know now in terms of what folks have said with regard to why they don't want to move forward? I mean, some of the things that I saw — I think I saw something regarding training versus support, and that there's a distinction in terms of what people actually want. Is that correct, Sean?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Well, yeah, so we have seen — a positive thing is that the data tells us that people are getting more sort of access to training, more supports, things like that, which is great. I think the surprising piece of the data was that that didn't seem to inform whether or not people aspired to lead, and so that's, then, where this framing of, like — are people being pushed into leadership based on negative experiences that they're trying to escape? Or are they being pulled or drawn to leading organizations because they're feeling supported, they're having positive experiences, they just want to be able to contribute at a higher level, right? And so, generally, the data is making us think that, particularly for people of color, that there's much more of a push factor of trying to escape negative experiences in their work, and that's the reason that people are aspiring to lead, which, you know, is both surprising but also concerning, because the hope would be that, for leadership to really be sustainable and appealing, that people would feel drawn to those kinds of roles, rather than applying to escape negative experiences otherwise.
Mary Morten: Exactly. And I'm just going to say, as I'm looking at one of the figures here and the reasons why respondents don't aspire to top leadership roles, the one that came out the highest was around just that “the work of the executive director doesn't interest me,” followed by “work-life balance priorities are not well suited for an executive director role,” which I thought was interesting and, in line with the pandemic, in some ways made sense.
Frances?
Frances Kunreuther: That's absolutely right, and we have to think about, how do we make these jobs more doable and attractive to people? And I can tell you, Mary, we get calls like once a week about co-directorships, so clearly people are interested. And actually, the percentage of co-directors went up from — it's still a very small percentage of leaders, but from 2019, when we first asked about co-directorships, to 2022, for leaders of color in organizations, the leaders of color who were co-directors doubled from 6 percent to 12 percent. So we can definitely see some sort of change in the sector.
And I wanted to talk a little bit about what we mean by the problem with being pushed. So in our 2019 survey, we found that people of color who worked in what we call white-run organizations — that is, 75 percent or more of the board and senior leadership were white, so very white-dominant organizations — were much less happy with their jobs — questions like, you know, would I want to be in this organization in three years — than white respondents. And when they were in a person-of-color-led organization, where 50 percent — we even dropped it down to 50 percent or more of the leadership and board were BIPOC — not only were people of color happier, so were white people; everybody was happier in those organizations. So we saw that, and that was confirmed again in 2022. And people of color who aspire to leadership are more likely to be in white-run organizations, where we know they're having negative experiences. So clearly they are being pushed to lead to correct some of the negative experiences that they're having in their current organizations. But wouldn't it be great if people in BIPOC-run organizations, or BIPOC-led organizations or with a person of color at the head of the organization, saw that as a role model and said, yeah, I want to lead because this person is leading? But we saw the opposite effect. So that's an example of what we mean by being pushed into leadership rather than pulled.
Mary Morten: And it seems to me that that makes sense with regard to sort of our anecdotal experiences as a group that does executive search work, in that, you know, after long-time leaders, after founders, sometimes an organization is getting their first BIPOC leader and they really aren't ready for it, and that's something we ask. We, like, literally say, you know, do you understand what this means? Have you done any work around equity, et cetera, et cetera? And, you know, of course, organizations often are very positive, yet they have not done that work and, you know, we get someone in there; we don't want someone to come in unless it's understood they're going to be a transitional leader, right, or a turnaround leader, and often, after long-time leadership or after a founder leaves, the person doesn't last very long because they're not supported. I just heard from someone last night who I didn't realize had left her role as a CEO of a foundation and was actually asked to leave and was not really — and was doing some extraordinary things and really did not feel like they had the runway, if you will, and the support to do the work that, of course, she had been hired to do.
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Yeah. And, you know, we — particularly based on the 2019 data but also a lot of interviews, we did put out a few reports a few years ago looking at the particular challenges of executive directors of color and then leadership transitions where the outgoing leader had been white and the incoming leader was a person of color, and so those stories are echoed in our own findings, both quantitative and qualitative, and that could inform, to some extent, the the lower degree of aspiration to move into a leadership role for people of color working for organizations that are led by people of color. They're seeing the double binds that people are having to navigate. They're seeing the pushback. They’re — you know, all of those things might be part of what's contributing to less of that aspiration, you know, and so I think that the — this piece around, like. how do we make the role more sustainable is an important one for current leaders but it's also an important question to figure out as a sector in order to entice and make it appealing for more people who are coming into the sector to move into leadership roles, because when people come into the sector in their 20s, you know, there is a lot of aspiration and that aspiration is going to decline over time, and that's understandable, but we need to be able to direct some of, like, the younger people coming into the sector into — onto a leadership path, and right now it just seems like the sector is really struggling to identify, support, and cultivate leaders, and I think it's for a variety of reasons.
Mary Morten: Well, one of the things that comes to mind is the recent situation with Dr. Claudine Gay, and that is actually something that our thought leadership piece will be about in the next week or so, because, while that situation was happening with her, we also know — again, from the work that we do and, you know, just sort of reading about what's happening in the world — that lots of Black women in particular have left their roles — and the person I was referencing a few moments ago was a Black woman — and that there seems to be some major shift happening. Did you pick up on that? Was it — in terms of the data, did you see those kinds of distinctions by gender and race?
Frances Kunreuther: Well, I was going to report on, we had a question that was a write-in question — this wasn't a data question — where we asked executive directors how the current sociopolitical moment was affecting their leadership, and that's where it really showed up. So what we saw, especially for women of color, many of whom were Black women, was that they said they were both energized because there had been attention paid to race after the uprisings when George Floyd was murdered, that there was some consciousness and that they felt they could almost come out more around race, and, at the same time, they were completely exhausted. And this was in 2022. Imagine now, with all the backlash or “whitelash,” however you want to describe it, that's going on for people. We also found that for white respondents, they had a different way of looking at it. They were deep into thinking about DEI, many of whom had never really addressed it before in their organizations, and they were trying to figure out how to stay neutral in a world that was asking them to do something that they felt wasn't neutral in their communities. The leaders of color didn't talk about neutrality, and I think that this idea of being — that fairness and neutrality aren't the same thing, and equity and neutrality aren't the same thing, and I think we're a little stuck in our organizations. Again, we know how to talk about things, but we don't really know how to change things. And that's, I think, some of what you're seeing when people say, oh, yes, we're ready, and then we see the enormous trauma that people have to go through and the incredible burden we're putting on people who decide they're willing to take on these roles.
Mary Morten: And it seems as though, from some of the data that I was reviewing, that BIPOC folks are still being underpaid with comparison to white folks and that that, in some cases, impacted their decisions, or no? Is that accurate that they were being underpaid, that some cases they were being also called upon to do the DEI work? You know, somebody brings that up; guess what, then you're going to get to do it, and, at the same time, not enough attention being addressed with regard to wellness and sort of self-care, and then not a lot of opportunities for advancement. I mean, if you put all those things together, why would you want to continue, right? Why would you be interested?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Yeah. So I think in terms of our data, it's hard to make assertions around pay inequity. You know, it looks — you know, and it may just be, like, about the level of detail in terms of the question that we have in the survey around pay, but it looks like generally there's equity. I think the challenge is, you know, that — are salaries adequate? (Laughs.) Do people feel like the pay is equitable, rather than, like, looking at the data, is there an observable difference in what people are reporting? That's a different question from, like, whether people feel like their pay is inequitable. But, you know, I think that the piece that you’re raising around the sort of second job that a lot of leaders of color report they have around, like, the DEI turnaround in their organizations, like, all of those things are added burdens, right, in terms of just like the list of things on people's plates as leaders. And those are sort of areas of responsibility that are particularly risky in organizations in terms of, you know, as Frances was saying, the potential for backlash or “whitelash”or, you know, particularly post-SCOTUS ruling around affirmative action, you know, like the attacks on DEI programs, things like that. So I think all of it contributes to this sense that there is — you know, yes, leaders of color may be able to break through a glass ceiling and take that top job, but they can also very quickly get pushed over what we called this glass cliff, because they're, you know, overloaded with responsibilities at the very time when the organizations that they're taking on may be — you know, have more challenges, be less stable, things like that, so all of which does contribute to some of the challenges that leaders of color do certainly report, both in some of the quantitative data but also in a lot of, you know, interviews and anecdotal things that I think a lot of us are hearing as well.
Frances Kunreuther: I just want to add one thing. This will come out later. This is not in the report, but you've got our juices going here and we've been looking at all this data. People of color may make similar salaries than whites, when we do a comparison. I mean, we need to break it down a little bit more by size of organization, et cetera. However, if you look at who people of color are supporting outside their — both within and outside their households and whether they have extra contributions to their household, there is a very big difference between white respondents and people-of-color respondents. So you can't just look at the salary. You have to look at what that salary has to do or are what the expectations are. So people of color are definitely supporting, regularly supporting people outside their household, their immediate family, more than whites. But we're going to do something on that in the spring, just to — you know, a short piece just to get people to understand that it's not just about salary, it's also about financial obligations.
Mary Morten: OK. Well, we're going to take a short break, and when we come back, we want to talk a little bit more about the external climate and leadership and what we've learned about that, and also, what are your hopes for the data? We're going to continue. We're talking about the new survey from Race to Lead and we'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to “Gathering Ground.”
Hi, everyone; thanks so much for joining me on “Gathering Ground.” We want to hear from you. If you have any questions about your work in nonprofits or any of the topics that we've covered here on “Gathering Ground,” send them on in; send them to mary@gatheringgroundpodcast.com. That's mary @ gatheringgroundpodcast — all one word — dot com. We look forward to hearing from you.
So welcome back, everyone. We're here talking to Sean Thomas-Breitfeld and Frances Kunreuthers about the new Race to Lead data, and I want to encourage you to go to Building Movement Project and check out the data. It's really, really telling, and it's really important that we understand where we are in the nonprofit world, particularly with regard to how we can support leadership, in particular BIPOC leadership. And I want to take a moment now and just — let's talk a little bit about the differences in terms of the data from the last two surveys. So there was a survey in 2016, 2019, and 2022. What have you noticed about the white respondents in the data collection?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Well, I'll return to that one data point that I talked about earlier in terms of people's awareness of the impact of their race on their career advancement.
So, back in 2016, half of white respondents acknowledged white racial privilege by saying that their race had positively impacted their career advancement, and that increased to two-thirds in 2019 and then was again two-thirds in 2022. So, you know, at the same time of, like, people of color having this both experience but also shift in perception and understanding, a similar thing was happening for white respondents too. And, you know, obviously, like, the survey is of the people working in the nonprofit sector, so I think people who are probably, you know, maybe more conscious, more “woke,” if you want to use that term. So I think that that may explain some of those shifts. And, you know, it's still interesting to see some of the things that Frances brought up earlier around, like, particularly white leaders feeling like they need to both be responsive to the moment around race equity but being challenged by it, because they also feel the need to maintain some kind of neutrality. So, you know, it's always both things end up being true, which is really complicated.
Frances Kunreuther: And the piece that Sean described about the consciousness of race: There's some evidence of that in the data. If you look at who aspires to lead — I mentioned before that BIPOC respondents kind of went up between 2016 and 2019 and then dropped down. White respondents have had a steady decline in their aspirations to lead, so that's a big difference, and there's been less aspirations on the part of white leaders. Again, maybe because of some of this consciousness. We don't know. We don't ask that question directly.
The other thing is that if you look over all the years when white and BIPOC respondents in their 20s come in and they're interested in leading — over 40 percent of everybody. It's almost exactly — it's almost the same dot on the graph. And then you see kind of a little bit of a bell curve that for BIPOC respondents they kind of — there's more interest in their 30s and 40s, and then it starts dropping down. White respondents: It goes just straight down, that their interest in leading as they age is declining, rather than this kind of what you might expect. You know, you get 10 years in and you think, oh, that would be good to lead. So, again, we don't know if this is partly because of what Sean is mentioning, that there's a new consciousness about that, or something happens when they enter the sector that they decide not to lead. So that's something we're curious about. Or maybe it's opting out; maybe they don't need — you know, we don't know how many people lead because they need the money for leading. I mean, we don't talk about that. We don't say, did you decide to take a leadership job because it pays better? And for — if we look at some of the economics we were talking about more recently, white respondents have more — are more likely to have somebody else in their household contributing to their overall household income. So it may be that white leaders don't need to lead because there is an income bump when you start leading. So there are things we don't know. And one of the things we've been talking about is this spring and maybe over the summer holding focus groups by race to really dig into some of the questions that we didn't ask in the survey, to understand better some of the questions that you're asking.
Mary Morten: What surprised you about this round of data collection? Sean?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: I mean, I'll say I was surprised — (laughs) — that there was a decline in aspiration. Like, that surprised me. And I was — (laughs) — doubly surprised when people of color working for organizations with strong leadership of people of color had less aspiration. It just — it did surprise me, you know? Like, I started my career working for organizations that had leadership of people of color, that were race-based, identity-based organizations, and it was powerful for me at that age to be working in organizations where I was seeing people of color in powerful roles, leading powerfully, and so it just — it has defied my expectations, to be honest, to have this data that we highlighted in the push/pull report.
Mary Morten: Well, I will just add before we come to you, Frances, that I am surprised by that as well. And even in our own organization — which is not a nonprofit, granted, but when we were surveying, you know, our team, people really commented on the fact that it mattered to them that there was a Black, queer woman running it, like that meant something to them and it made them, you know, really invest in a particular way. So I totally agree with that.
What was what was surprising to you, Frances?
Frances Kunreuther: I think what's most surprising is we’re so — we're kind of stuck and it seems like we're making progress but we're not, and it's kind of the discouragement of people not wanting leadership, and that that surprised me. I thought we were moving someplace. And the fact that leaders of color are still facing many more obstacles in their organizations than white leaders — I mean, is it surprising? It's not surprising, but we thought we would move the needle, especially since people say they have fewer challenges and more support. That has been great. People really report much fewer challenges at their work, ranging from their workloads to inadequate salaries. All the challenges have been reduced over the three surveys and all the supports have increased over the three surveys. The one that hasn't is mentors outside the work, that that is an important support and it actually has a lot to do with whether people aspire to lead. And yet both for BIPOC and white respondents, they have fewer mentors outside the work, and I think we really need to think about why that's true, because those people are absolutely instrumental in helping people with their career advancement.
Mary Morten: I was just going to ask about mentors because I wondered had you seen a shift, and you have, in terms of people saying that they really need that support and they're not getting it? Is that correct?
Frances Kunreuther: They're not getting it. We don't know if they say they need it. There was a question about that, but I don't remember the response on that. So that's a great, great question; we'll have to go back to the data and look. They're definitely getting less mentorship outside their organization. There is a little bit more mentorship inside their organization, but that is primarily for white respondents, much less so for BIPOC respondents. There's an increase for both, but the increase is much greater for white respondents. Don’t know why. Why is that? Why would that be true? And yet it's clearly what the data shows.
Mary Morten: That's interesting to me because, again, when we do executive searches, we almost insist upon putting in the letter of offer that this — whether they're a first-time ED or president, CEO or whatever the case may be, that they have the ability to have a coach coming into the role, and if they’re a new CEO or ED that they go to a bootcamp. We have one actually here in Chicago, and people have literally come from all over the country, but just to start with that understanding, we found, is really important to help this person — again, whether they've been a CEO or not, ongoing support is generally needed. And certainly I know folks who've had coaches for years and years and there's no reason not to. So mentorship, coaching, certainly in our work, it has been key and that people are often concerned that they won't be able to get it. So I can see why that that makes sense.
And again, as you said, Frances, white folks had more support than the BIPOC folks? Is that my understanding? OK.
And so what happens now with this data as you release it into the world? What are your hopes for it, and what have you seen happen with it in terms of how people are using it and referencing it from the last two cycles?
Frances Kunreuther: Well, I just want to say, first of all, we just released it, so we don't know what's going to happen or how people will use it. We will have an op-ed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy about it. I think it's coming out in late January, so, as people listen to this, you'll be able to find that.
The thing that I wanted to say is we have a new senior director and she's only been with us for less than three weeks and she read the report and she said, this is my story. She said, I wanted to be a leader as a woman of color because I work for so many — in so many places where I felt like I couldn't advance, I was treated so terribly, and I was being pushed to be a leader because of my negative experiences, and I read this and I just felt like, wow, this is exactly how I feel. And that was so confirming. She was reading it because we — she's, you know, overseeing communications — (laughs) — so we wanted her to read the report. But it was very moving as she talked about that as one of her first reactions. And, you know, all of our data, Mary, really is just to affirm what people already know. It just puts numbers behind people's experiences, and that's an example of that. It's not that especially BIPOC people don't know what's happening, you know, but somehow when you have a number behind it, it's both — the world may pay more attention, they may not, and we hope it's affirming to people.
Mary Morten: Well, I often understand that data — I think we all understand that data is really important and that, particularly when we're talking about issues around race, at least it's been our experience that it is difficult to move the needle, in some cases, unless we can say to an organization this is what's happening in your organization, which is why all of our racial equity work starts off with an assessment of some sort, and I know you all have one as well. And even then, sometimes, you know, people may say, well, we have 10 staff and we need, you know — and there's a number here or percentage, you know, that we might use, as opposed to the actual number, of someone who's having a particular concern or issue in the organization. And in some cases, they're trying to say that, well, if it's just one person, why do we need to worry about that? And so then what we may do is take it out of the context around race and I will say something like, well, what if this were about sexual harassment? Would you do something about it then? And then there's a very different, “Well, well, yes,” and I said, and you don't think that this sort of rises to the level of importance for you to address it, because you're not seeing it in high numbers, and so really trying to get people to understand that if, first of all — I mean, I believe, certainly from our numbers, that in general, people tend to underreport what's happening. People tend to overreport what they know whenever we ask about racial equity, access, diversity and inclusion; they rate themselves much higher — (laughter) — and it's very clear when we go in and do workshops, and at the same time, if we have young people, for instance, that are being surveyed, we may see that three out of nine folks may not feel that they were welcomed in an organization and we've had to go back to an organization and say that was a particular, you know, sample size; however, our experiences say that that number is likely higher. You had folks who were willing to say it. There are many folks, even though it's anonymous, even though we promise that there will not be any identifiable information, you know, released and connected to your remarks, people are still hesitant to say what their concerns and issues are. And are you — is that a sense that you have, as well, when you're looking at the data? I mean, there's no way, of course, to tell, but what's your sense around what's being reported and then what's actually happening in an organization?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Well, yeah, so our — the Race to Lead survey certainly — you know, we're talking like thousands of respondents. It's anonymous. People are providing, like, very detailed write-in responses often that are so rich and insightful and lifting up what their experiences are, and really echoing what the quantitative side of the survey tells us as well. And so, yeah, I think that the data helps to affirm and contextualize people's experiences so that, you know, people might have felt like, oh, this was my problem, this was the struggle that I had, but a report like the push/pull report helps people see it as a pattern that is built into systems. And, you know, that analysis is important for people not to personalize it — (laughs) — as, like, some personal failing, but to then think, OK, so systemically, how can we address this shared challenge and address it in a collective way as a sector? And that's the hope of like the sort of back and forth between lived personal experience and the dialogue around data and the framing that the data can provide so that people's experience is, you know, a part of a broader context and a broader call for action.
Mary Morten: Frances?
Frances Kunreuther: I think it's really important for those of us who are white to really understand this data because it's so easy to do just what Sean was talking about: dismiss somebody's experience as their personal failing. And I think that if somebody complains about, like, you're not welcoming, you say, well, those are those people; you know, it's not about our system; it's not about me; it's not about what white-dominant culture does to people if it's not corrected. So I think the data is so important for white people to not dismiss what people of color are telling them is their experience. And I also think it's interesting — I remember years ago I was in a fellowship program and one of — there was a person, another white woman who was quite a bit younger than me and she said, I don't understand all this about race; like, you know, why would people always feel so offended? That was her word. And I said, well, let me give you an example: I used to run an organization for LGBTQ youth and I would be on a plane traveling someplace and a white guy next to me would say, what do you do? And I would say, I work with gay and lesbian youth. And then he didn't talk to me for the rest of the flight. I will never know whether it was because he just didn't feel like talking or because I said I worked with gay and lesbian youth. I had the cover that nobody knew that unless they asked me. And I think that that's what we need to understand, that when you always face that, when you always face that — and I don't think people who are not experienced in that can really understand what that is like.
Mary Morten: Absolutely. It is just — certainly for BIPOC folks — part of our daily existence. And I've said the same thing. You know, when I walk — I'm six feet tall, which you may remember when we met. (Laughs.) But, you know, when I walk into a store and there are many people at a counter, you know, and I'm saying like, oh no, I actually was next, and they say, oh, I didn't see you — that's really hard for me to believe. (Laughs.) You know, really? And just what of that is you actually didn't see me, which is hard to believe, or it was because, you know, just anyone who has darker skin would just not be in your purview, like, you're always going to look in the other direction, and that's just a part of life, I mean, and trying to explain to someone that every day, every single day, whether it's through media, whether I'm walking down the street, I am reminded that I am a person of color and that I am underrepresented. I mean, it happens every single day and I think that is hard for people to — who don't have those experiences. They just don't understand that.
You know, as we get ready to wrap up, I just want to take a moment and acknowledge all the work that you all have done, because of course you have announced that you all will be leaving the organization, and I just want to say how much this work has meant to me, all the work that you all have done, this data. I was so excited when I first discovered the first report and kept talking to people about it, and it has been wonderful that there's been several iterations of it. As you, you know, think about all you've done in the last 10 years, what are you most proud of?
Sean?
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Well, yeah so — and for me, you know, it is the last 10 years; for Frances it's over 20 years. I'm really proud of the ways that the organization has grown, but I'm also proud of the ways that I've grown, which, in large part, is due to the support and mentorship of Frances, you know? Like, we came into this leadership partnership being, you know — yeah, we're both queer, but, like, different generations, different racial backgrounds, you know, a lot of difference that was generative, and different backgrounds in terms of, like, our professional experience. You know, I came more out of the organizing and advocacy world, right, and Frances came more out of the service delivery world. And so, like, all of that difference has been generative for us as a partnership and also generative for the organization. And I think that that is something that I am very proud of, happy about, and I think, you know, it's exciting. It's an exciting point in my career, given that I've got 25-plus years of work still ahead of me, but I think it's also an exciting point for the organization to be going through this kind of a transition. And, you know, I think both Frances and I are super-committed to the organization, Frances as the founder, me as a former board member and then a former executive leader of the organization. You know, we're committed to supporting BMP in the future, you know, like, supporting the next leader —
Frances Kunreuther: Sean, we lost you.
Mary Morten: Yeah, we lost you for just a second.
But, Frances, why don't you pick that up in terms of what you're most proud of and —
Frances Kunreuther: Let me just start by correcting the record. It's mutual mentorship, because I learned so much from Sean. And we often say that the work — it wasn't that we just shared the work; we could do so much more by learning from each other and by what we both brought to the organization. So that was really something — I mean, who knew about co-directorships then? And it could have been a disaster. We didn't know; we were just trying it out, and I think it was luck and more that helped it really produce, I think, some of our best work after Sean came. And it was always building on the previous work. We've had so many wonderful people involved with the Building Movement Project, often on their volunteer time, such great thinkers. And we see ourselves as a learning organization. We never know things until we listen and learn from people, and I feel very proud of that. It's not that we're so smart and come up with these ideas; it's that people are so smart and are willing to share with us their experiences and ideas, and then we're able to put that out in the world, and that's a real honor and privilege that we've been able to do that.
Mary Morten: Wonderful. And to your point, you were doing a co-directorship, a co-executive directorship, when it was really new. I mean, certainly we're talking to more client partner organizations about it, actually did a podcast about it — (laughs) — probably more than a year ago with three different organizations, but it was something that many folks had not heard of. And I actually know of a husband and wife team that are co-directors in an organization and have been doing it for years and it's gone quite well. So this is a new way of trying to share the workload, if you will, because, as we all know, as an individual leader, it can be overwhelming, and this is one way to help with that.
I would like to know, as we close out, what's sort of your north star in terms of the work that you may do down the road? I'm not asking you to say what you're going to be doing, but what will always be important to you as a result of doing the work at the Building Movement Project? What will be important to you, yes, as you continue to move forward in your career?
I’m going to start with you, Sean, since you said you had 25-plus years left. (Laughs.)
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: Yeah, so I'll think about — I'll answer that from two perspectives. So one is, like, content and the other is process. So from a content perspective, I've always been focused on race equity. That's been true throughout my career. It's certainly been true in my time at BMP, and, you know, it's unfortunate — (laughs) — that the challenges of embedded systemic racism are still with us, and so I think the work in that area is always going to be needed and, you know, I think that I have a race lens that gets applied to multiple other issues, right, like — and could talk about this as intersectionality or just, like, the reality of being Black and queer and light-skinned and, you know, like all of those things, right? And I think part of what I have gained from my time at BMP is the organization always had a race analysis and was looking at issues of leadership from a generational perspective, right? Like, the ability to think on multiple — in multiple ways, of multiple levels, is something I'm really looking forward to taking with me.
From a process perspective, I think the distinctive way that we have approached the work — and this is before I joined the organization; this has always been true of BMP and Frances's approach. It's about this cycle of listening to folks on the ground and learning from that wisdom in order to project to the sector critical questions that need to be addressed, right? Like, that cycle is something I really am excited about taking with me in whatever my next job is, so that I want to still be rooted in, connected to work and leaders on the ground and using that to, like, continue being a thought leader in the sector and — but not just like ideas person; like, I want it to be, continue to be rooted in what people on the ground are saying, experiencing, and struggling with.
And Frances?
Frances Kunreuther: Well, I don't have 25 years of work ahead of me, thank goodness. I have a lot behind me. And I'll continue to work, and really we're at such an important time and there's so much — there's so many opportunities to advance racial, social, economic justice in a country that's quickly losing its democracy, to start with. So I have no doubt that the work at Building Movement, the many, many, many wonderful people I've worked with will be allies in whatever way any of us can contribute, that we need to pause and have our joyous moments and then we need to go back into the fight. And I'm looking forward to that in a different way.
Mary Morten: Wonderful.
From the heart of the nonprofit sector to the ears of our engaged listeners, Sean and Frances have shared invaluable insights on leadership aspirations, declining interest, and the urgent need for systemic change in nonprofit governance.
Be sure to download this report at racetolead.org, and explore more of Building Movement Project’s work at buildingmovement.org.
And before I sign off, I want to express a very heartfelt thank you to Sean and to Frances for all of their work for so many years at buildingmovementproject.org. We are all the better for the work and your contributions. Thank you so very much.
In the meantime, keep rising above, keep prioritizing your peace, and keep gathering ground. I’m Mary Morten. Until next time.