PRESS

"In grassroots and nonprofit community spaces across Greater Boston, leadership often looks less like institutional power and more like improvisation. It looks like pulling double shifts and answering crisis calls after midnight because there is no backup staff. Stretching one grant across three programs. Delaying salaries to keep community services running. It looks like carrying not only organizational responsibility, but also the emotional, relational and material weight o

Nonprofit burnout among women of color leaders isn’t a personal failing—it’s a structural one. New research shows what funders must do differently to support equitable grantmaking practices. Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change, a new research report from the Boston Women’s Fund, shows that women and gender-expansive nonprofit leaders of color are paying the cost of philanthropic inequities with their bodies. The report’s focus group participants expressed that insufficien

Boston Women's Fund's CEO, Natanja Craig Oquendo and Researcher Jessica Martin sits with WCVB to discuss "Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change." WCVB CityLine: Supporting Women and Girls of Color New data shows just 0.2% of Greater Boston nonprofits focus on women and girls of color. Natanja Craig Oquendo, CEO of the Boston Women's Fund, and Jessica Martin, the research consultant for the study, lay out the resources needed to change current inequities. "When we talk about

Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios "Less than 1% of the revenue that Greater Boston nonprofits serving women, girls and gender-expansive people reported in 2024 went to groups prioritizing girls and women of color. Why it matters: Those groups' leaders reported being understaffed, overworked and less supported than other nonprofits, according to a new report from the Boston Women's Fund and UMass Boston. The findings come six years after U.S. business, philanthropic and poli