There are a lot of great things happening to encourage and celebrate the value of diverse leadership. Current leaders of color are speaking out and stepping up to promote social change around the country. This ain’t McDonald’s, but I’m loving it. This is what leaders of color are doing right now:
- Gearing up for the 2007 Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference Sept. 26-29 in DC (under the leadership of new President/CEO Dr. Elsie Scott)
- Talking about the leadership crisis facing African-American-led nonprofit organizations at “Who’s Got Next?” Sept. 26 in DC. Panelists include representatives of color from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, NAACP, National Urban League, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Girl Scouts, and…me!
- Saving the date for the Washington Grantmakers’ 15th Anniversary Conference on November 15 with keynote speaker Geoffrey Canada, President/CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone
- Celebrating Carol Thompson Cole as the newly-installed President/CEO of Venture Philanthropy Partners in DC. In an interview with the Examiner, Carol talks about why she works in philanthropy and shares some interesting tidbits about her work and personal life.
- Checking out, and getting involved with the new African American Nonprofit Network, whose mission is to increase the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations by: (i) increasing the talent flow, development, and retention of African American leaders in nonprofit organizations, particularly those serving children and families in the National Capital Region and (ii) building a pool of potential board members, investors, advisors, mentors and others that would provide a more robust network of leadership support.
- Talking about the need for capacity building: Native American nonprofit leader Ron McKinley, Project Director for the recently-launched Kellogg Action Lab is interviewed by Philanthropy News Digest. Says Ron: The nonprofit and philanthropic sectors face an extraordinary challenge at the moment — and it’s a complex one. One of the major contributors to that complexity is the fact that we’ve got this huge demographic cohort called the baby boom that is starting to age out of leadership positions in the sector…As a consequence, nonprofits are going to have to make an awful lot of decisions over the next five to ten years that they’ve never had to make before. And if they aren’t paying attention to their capacity to respond to change, we could, as a sector, end up in crisis.
