New report reveals disparities

There is $112 billion in Greater Boston’s total nonprofit revenue, yet only $25 million went toward nonprofits explicitly serving BIPOC women and girls.

While this demographic comprises 20% of Greater Boston’s population, it is served by only 0.2% of the area’s nonprofits, according to a new report by UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP) and the Boston Women’s Fund.

The “Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change” report issued March 26 exposed the chronic underfunding of Greater Boston’s nonprofits that serve women and girls of color compared to peer nonprofits.

“Underfunding has often felt like defeat. Year after year, we submit applications, receive denials, request feedback and are met with vague responses or silence,” said Ivanna Solano, executive director and founder of Love Your Magic, a Jamaica Plain-based nonprofit serving BIPOC girls.

“We resubmit and begin that same cycle again.”

In addition to numerical data, the report presented qualitative interviews with 25 executive directors from nonprofits serving BIPOC women and girls to understand their organizations’ financial reality and the individual mental health of leaders.

Due to such severe underfunding and leaders’ steadfast commitment to communities, leaders of nonprofit and grassroots organizations serving BIPOC women and girls frequently overextend themselves to ensure a consistent positive impact on their communities, with or without funds.

Such overextension is often accompanied by a mental health toll, the data reveal.

“Women of color leaders are carrying extraordinary organizational and community responsibilities while they’re operating within systems characterized by chronic under-investment,” said Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston and graduate program director for the Gender, Leadership and Public Policy graduate certificate program. “This report is not simply about nonprofit finances; it’s a study of leadership. It examines the relationships between inequitable funding structures and the impacts of these realities on the leaders themselves.”

The research reveals that funding toward BIPOC women- and girl-centered nonprofits is highly irregular. Funding spikes occur concurrently with national crises, such as in the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, during COVID, Greater Boston’s BIPOC-serving nonprofits saw an unforeseen increase in funding, followed by a sharp decline. This stark irregularity is what initially clued Nsiah-Jefferson into funding inequities.

The research methodology employed by Nsiah-Jefferson’s team followed an “anti-racist intersectional research” model, which is “in itself a political act,” she said. “How I do research… reflects my values, my lineage and my responsibility to communities.”

In practice, this was manifest in a research team composed almost entirely of women of color. “We wanted to ensure that the research we were doing was conducted in a way that made people feel able to be authentic,” Nsiah-Jefferson said.

The executive director of the Chicas Project, a Quincy-based nonprofit that educates and uplifts BIPOC girls, said burnout is the norm due to funding constraints.

“I’m currently holding two positions because I can’t hire a director of programs, so I’m also serving [in that capacity]. … We tend to stretch ourselves because we understand how important our work is, and all eyes are on us,” said Zaida Ismatul Oliva. She added that she holds steep expectations for herself, given the high stakes.

“We can’t fail. The chicas we serve are too important, so we do anything and everything to make it work at our expense. When funders are afraid to give, we hold the burden of their fear.”

This burden, which falls on nonprofit leaders, sometimes takes the form of financial turbulence and other nonprofit-related matters consuming most of their lives. “The days are long, and I can’t find the time to get to the gym. I also haven’t been able to give as much of my attention and time to my family,” Ismatul Oliva said. “It trickles down to other parts of our lives, which is really unfortunate.”

Bridgette Wallace, founder and president of G{Code}, felt similarly, urging nonprofits to connect more with one another to share resources.

“We remain under-resourced relative to the scale of the need we are addressing,” said Wallace, whose nonprofit empowers BIPOC girls in tech. “We believe that collaboration … is one of the most important pivots our sector can make in response to today’s funding environment.”

Much interpersonal communication already exists within Greater Boston’s philanthropic landscape, as networking is the primary way nonprofits acquire funding. One grassroots organization founder, who wished to remain anonymous, resents that reality, as she believes it is too exclusive to rely on as a small organization. She noted that resistance work in Boston leans on social networks, which are impacted by classism and exacerbate the difficulty she experiences getting funding.

Nonprofit leaders as well as “Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change” researchers urge funders to consider supporting nonprofits serving BIPOC women and girls consistently and generously.

“If Greater Boston’s philanthropic sector is serious about achieving equity,” Nsiah-Jefferson said, “then they must commit to matching their philanthropic dollars with the percentage of women of color that make up the population.”