Toya Lillard wrote a piece in Hyperallergic that asks “the philanthropic, nonprofit, and education sectors to expand their circles of trust beyond white or white-adjacent executive leadership in order to water the roots.”
Lillard says “shifting power is one area that seems to go nowhere across sectors.”
The nonprofit sector must immediately lean away from the precedent of empowering white leaders to act on behalf of Black and Brown people. Period. All organizations must lean into rewarding, cultivating, and trusting, leadership within their respective stakeholder communities, and the communities being served. Change will feel snail-like as long as white organizational leaders, tenured professors, board members, and funders control and dictate, the pace of inclusion and the adoption of anti-racist practices.