Bending the arc of nonprofit leadership toward justice: Impacts of racial representation and organizational publicness on diversifying executive leadership

Abstract

Nonprofits are critical partners in the delivery of government-funded human services in the US, but there is evidence of a persistent racial leadership gap in the sector, whereby Black and Latino Executive Directors are dramatically under-represented. Why does this gap persist despite increased attention to this issue in recent years? And what organizational and community-level factors do shape the likelihood that nonprofits will hire a Black or Latino Executive Director (ED)? We answer these questions through a mixed-methods sequential design, drawing on survey data from 606 nonprofit organizations across the US, along with interview data from 12 nonprofit executives representing expert informants in the Chicago metro area. Consistent with theories of representation and publicness, we find demographic representation at the board level positively linked to the hiring of a Black or Latino ED, but government funding has inconsistent effects. We further elaborate on these findings through our qualitative data.