Women at the Top Blog

Women may hold the vast majority of staff jobs in the non-profit sector, but female leadership is sorely lacking at the senior management level. Of the top 50 leadership positions in the sector, men hold 62 per cent and women 38 per cent, according to a recent national Non-profit Employment Trends Survey.

Why is this? I spoke with Liz Maw, executive director of Net Impact, a non-profit that aims to help people in business promote social and environmental sustainability, about the lack of women leaders. She says:

“Even though the non-profit sector has a better work-life balance than the corporate sector, there are still the same issues in terms of the dearth of women at the top. The chief executive of a non-profit is just like the chief executive of a company. It’s a very external-facing job. There’s typically a lot of travel involved [which can be difficult for women with small children]. There are often expectations of public speaking, and there is some evidence that women tend to shy away from that. But because there are so many women in the pipeline of non-profits, the drop-off is disappointing.”

Maw is confident there will be an increase in female managers in the future, however, as more women who have had business and leadership training enter the non-profit workforce. According to a survey of more than 1,500 business students by Net Impact, more than a third of female MBAs are seeking “meaning” in their jobs and many are leaning toward non-profit work.

The survey found that 36 per cent of women ranked the potential to contribute to society among the top three factors when looking for work, compared with 28 per cent of men. Nearly 10 per cent of women MBAs said they wanted to work for a non-profit after graduation, compared with 4 per cent of men. About 70 per cent of men and 73 per cent of women said they are interested in working in the non-profit sector at some point in their careers.

Maw adds:

“What makes me hopeful is seeing the different expectations of what the Millennial Generation [also known as Generation Y] want out of a job. They want rewarding jobs, and they want to make a difference. This is what non-profits are all about.”