CARRYING THE WEIGHT,
LEADING THE CHANGE
How Women of Color Grassroots Leaders Navigate Inequities While Driving Solutions
A research report in partnership with Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy at UMass Boston
At the heart of this report is a simple truth: BIPOC women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders are holding our communities together. They are visionaries, healers, and organizers. They are the ones who show up first in moments of crisis, who stretch scarce resources to meet urgent needs, and who carry their communities with love and resilience.
And yet, these same leaders are too often overlooked, undervalued, and underfunded. Their organizations often work with less and give the most. Their wisdom and lived experience rarely shape the decisions that most affect their communities.
This report aims to shift that narrative. While traditional research methods often miss small nonprofits at the grassroots level, we zoomed in. Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change is able offer something new — a data-driven picture of how women and gender-expansive leaders of color are faring within Greater Boston’s grassroots landscape, as it actually is.
We offer both the numbers and stories behind the numbers to name the inequities these leaders face, honor their brilliance, and call funders, policymakers, and partners into a different way of resourcing community power.
"At the Boston Women’s Fund, we’ve heard and felt these truths time and again, carried by grassroots leaders whose lived experience is expertise. At the Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy, we knew these insights needed to be captured as formal, rigorous, undeniable evidence. Because lived realities are not anecdotes; they are facts. And facts must drive the policies and investments that shape our futures."
- Natanja Craig Oquendo, CEO, BWF and
Dr. Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Director, CWPPP
RESEARCH PARTNERS.
Jessica K. Martin, Research Consultant
Jessica Martin is an independent research consultant who partners with foundations and nonprofit organizations to use data, storytelling, and community-centered research to inform more equitable decision-making. Her work bridges quantitative analysis and qualitative insight, translating complex information into narratives that help organizations better understand the communities they live in and serve. She brings professional experience across government, philanthropy, and think tanks, where she has led projects in policy analysis, data management, and strategic operations.
Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy
Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Director | Christa Kelleher, Research & Policy Director |
Amrith Fernandes Prabhu, Graduate Assistant | Adanna Kalejaye, Graduate Assistant
The Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP), based at the McCormack Graduate School
of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston aims to promote diverse women’s leadership to achieve more just, equitable, and responsive public and institutional policies and meaningful inclusion. It does this through its Gender, Leadership, and Public Policy (GLPP) graduate certificate and MPA-GLPP track programs; summer leadership academy; applied research on electoral representation and intersectional public policy analysis, relating to the economic, health and social well-being of women and families; and public convenings and fellowship programs that mobilize community and women’s political participation. In all its work, CWPPP’s approach is anti-racist as the center seeks to tackle critical issues affecting women’s lives through an intersectional lens of gender, race/ethnicity, class, and other identities.
IN THE NEWS.
Media coverage featuring Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change.
