Women Of Color Leaders Find Their “Why” in 2024 and Beyond

When I began my career in the nonprofit sector, I knew I had finally found the marriage of my personal and professional passions and core beliefs. However, for women of color in leadership roles, the challenges often are the same whether in Corporate America or community-based organizations. As Taraji P. Henson, star of The Color Purple, recently said when talking about race, the gender pay gap, and the unreasonable expectations Black women endure, “The math ain’t mathing!”

Let this sink in for a second: philanthropy has ramped up its commitments to fund Black-led and BIPOC-led organizations since 2020, but a majority of Black-led and Black-benefiting nonprofits continue to operate on less than $500,000 a year. Further, women make up over 75% of the nonprofit workforce, but among nonprofits with more than $1 million in annual operating revenue, only 22% of executive directors are women.

When I speak with many of the amazing women across Brooklyn who are leading nonprofits, it’s not uncommon to hear them say, “Jocelynne, some days I feel like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back.” As a result, many women are leaving the nonprofit world, citing everything from the glass cliff to stress-related health concerns. Still, the women who do this work aren’t short on commitment or determination. In fact, I stand in awe of what they’re able to accomplish, how they force open doors that would otherwise be slammed shut, and ultimately make a way even when it looks like there’s no hope.

This includes women like Katrena Perou, Executive Director of Inspiring Minds NYC, which was founded in 2018 to provide a range of services to under-represented youth in grades 9-12. It’s a program that is ultimately run by and for the community, providing our youth with education, mentoring, leadership opportunities, arts, lessons on civic engagement, and so much more.

Inspiring Minds NYC has been doing amazing work and will be celebrating its five-year anniversary this year. But, as Perou tells it, getting to this point wasn’t a walk in the park. Founding this organization, finding resources, and getting funding were all major challenges during her first two years running Inspiring Minds NYC.

“I’ve witnessed firsthand the discrepancies in the nonprofit space and I haven’t been shy about asking funders, ‘Why do you give primarily to nonprofits with white leadership?” says Perou. “One foundation was even willing to be honest enough to say that getting grants will be more difficult for me because I’m Black and a woman. You see, most foundations give money to people who they know and are in their inner circles—and those people are mostly white people.”

Then there were those moments where she even considered calling it quits. “You’re probably having a hard time getting funding, right?” said a director from a major foundation. Her comment reflected the fact that Inspiring Minds NYC was taking on issues that funders were scared to touch. But she was told to hang in there and keep talking about issues such as systemic racism because these conversations are essential in our communities.

Shortly after, in response to the murder of George Floyd and the growing Black Lives Matter movement, funders shifted to addressing race and social justice. Her organization was already ahead of the game and quickly grew from serving three New York City schools to 20, and now leads two citywide My Brother’s Keeper and My Sister’s Keeper programs, engaging approximately 3,500 students.

As Perou reflects on her development as a woman of color and a nonprofit leader, she emphasizes the importance of being clear of one’s purpose. For example, her “why” is to create a ground-up model with Black and brown leadership, where they can be unapologetically themselves and do what’s best for their community without having to ask permission. Knowing her “why” is what gave her the internal fortitude to keep going during the hard times.

Of course, you don’t have to know all the answers. “Sometimes, you just have to take one step at a time, and make sure you don’t stand still. You’ll get clarity along the way,” she says.

This is a lesson that she also promotes to the youth in her program. “The model I designed helps them find their ‘why’ and to begin their own journey as leaders,” she reflects. To date, she has funded and provided technical assistance to 32 teens to pilot programs that address issues in their community, which has garnered her attention from media outlets such as PIX11 and Chalkbeat.

Black women are uniquely equipped to lead us through these challenging times. But, as the saying goes, “We need to be funded like you want us to win.”

Being part of Brooklyn Org means that you are investing in vital Black woman-led nonprofits across our communities – from Brooklyn Org Spark Prize winners Drive Change, Center for Law and Social Justice, STEM From Dance, Sadie Nash Leadership Project, and Power of Two, to cultural and economic innovators like Green City Force, Ifetayo, and The Black Institute, to leadership programs like Girls for Gender Equity, Pure Legacee, and Girl Be Heard, to caring communities like Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Global Trauma Research, The Alex House Project, and so many more.

Brooklyn is indebted to these great women leaders. We’ve got your back, do you have ours?