Cynthia makes a great point. What nonprofit wouldn’t jump at the chance to hire an Ivy-League-educated candidate with passion for the cause as well as a trust fund and trust fund buddies? My initial sense was that we are describing the ideal candidate that doesn’t turn up very often…but then, looking within the top leadership of nonprofits around the country, especially national ones, we have to make exceptions. Often the costs of working in the nonprofit sector are so great that it becomes essentially prohibitive for someone from a “normal” or “modest” background to both engage in the work of social change and actually support themselves and their families. So what we are seeing are that many of those who are able to survive off of nonprofit salaries are those who are already wealthy, at least in executive leadership positions. As I read Cynthia’s post, I began to think of how many nonprofit executive directors I know of that are from wealthy families and elite educational institutions that have founded various nonprofit organizations in the DC area to serve the underserved. Many of these leaders are so well-to-do, they don’t even take a salary. Just ask Guidestar, their nonprofit 990 service will tell you who’s not hurting for a paycheck. As I have written previously, often these leaders are White, and the populations they serve are communities of color and often great poverty. Let me also just pause for a moment here to clarify once more that I do not necessarily take issue with White leaders serving these communities. We need all kinds of people to step up and do the important work of social change as it moves their hearts to do so. I just wonder what the reasons are behind the racial disparity and lack of diversity within the nonprofits serving these communities. Why is it that the people who have experienced the struggle and challenge with living in poverty or who have been single mothers or who were the mentees or tutees of nonprofits…are not usually the ones who emerge as nonprofit leaders to address these issues as a way of giving back? Aren’t these the ideal leaders that would know how best to solve these social problems?

Maybe they do want to give back to their communities, but the bar is too high to leap over. Maybe it’s too tough to obtain support of your nonprofit cause without the right alumni bumper sticker on your car or a wealthy businessman for a father. Maybe we in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors are indeed enamored with credentials and class? Or maybe not. Perhaps it is just that we need to have this conversation about how the future of nonprofit leadership is very much tied up with issues at the intersection of race and class. Without looking at these factors, how can we expect to recruit more leaders of color who are often more representative of the communities served by the nonprofit sector than current leaders?

Eddy Morales of Center for Community Change tells his story of how he came to the nonprofit world because a local organization was offering a stipend to people to be organizers around local issues in the Latino community. Otherwise, he couldn’t have afforded to pursue a career in social change. His story is representative of so many other people of varying race, social class and economic status that want to make a difference, but can’t cover the tab. Why, again, is it that the very people that have gone through the fire aren’t necessarily stepping up to help others do the same?

Julianne Malveaux, President of Bennett College, has denounced unpaid internships because they disenfranchise the kinds of future leaders we so desperately need in the nonprofit sector. How can you really expect someone, say, from a low socioeconomic background to be able to give back to the community they may have grown up in when you ask people to practically work for free? When I was in college, I had to work three jobs to support myself while attending classes full-time. There was no way in hell I could have afforded to pursue an unpaid internship with any nonprofit organization, no matter how much I admired their mission. That’s why, working in DC, it’s amazing how much the unpaid internship is sought after. I have experienced firsthand working with interns that come from wealthy families and have no real need for the monetary value of a part-time job; the experience is the value. Cynthia continues:

So what do we do about it? We can start by recognizing that a cultural obsession with last names, pedigree, and/or social capital doesn’t have to be one that we embrace, but rather, challenge. We can hire people on the basis of their experiences and skills, rather than on who their parents are or where they went to school. In the midst of all the accolades being bestowed on our leaders, we can ask, “what have they actually done to deserve these?” And, perhaps most importantly, we can ask what obstacles, if any, has this person endured or overcome and how has that made them a stronger, smarter, and/or ethical person?

Pablo Eisenberg says that leadership and challenge go hand in hand. So if our current leaders never had to face challenge, but are tasked with paving the way for change in communities of complex social ills, who’s zooming who? If we are in fact buying into the idea of a desirably upper-social-classed, highly credentialed nonprofit leadership pool, are we really getting anywhere with our goals of solving the kinds of problems that could benefit from leaders with first-hand knowledge of the issues?

And while we’re speculating, let me pose a ridiculous sort of question. Would you watch a new reality show called “America’s Next Top Nonprofit Leader?” Would you call in and cast your vote for the best-dressed top-tier graduate in the group with the biggest pocketbook? No, you wouldn’t be that shallow, you say? But…maybe you’d have to think twice if she also had oodles of well-connected friends who were also well-dressed top-tier graduates with big pocketbooks who would make a great board of “movers and shakers” and could really “leverage” their clout to help communities they have never lived in and would never want to visit. Oh hell, maybe you’d just let your search firm make the decision for you.

What I wonder is if maybe we are watching this play out right now before our very eyes. If so, I wonder if it’s time to change the channel. Or at least start voting some people off.