March 28, 2026 • 25 mins
Greater Boston is full of philanthropists and grassroots non-profits that are dedicated to doing good in underserved communities. The Boston Women's Fund has just released a new first-of-its-kind report that goes through the financing for these non-profits, tracking exactly where the money goes. They found only a tiny fraction of the billions in available funding is going to organizations that support women and girls of color. Boston Women's Fund CEO Natanja Craig Oquendo, and Jessica Martin, a research consultant for the Fund, join Nichole to explain what they found, discuss the contributing factors, and offer their advice for a fairer future.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week we come together right here we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Great to have you back with us this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. Greater Boston is full of nonprofits and
philanthropists that are dedicated to doing good and uplifting the
underserved all over the city in the region too. The
(00:29):
Boston Women's Fund has just released a brand new report
that's the first of its kind, and in this report,
they go through the financing that's coming from these philanthropists
for nonprofits, specifically where the money is going. What they
found is eye opening. They found a tiny fraction of
the billions of dollars in the city's nonprofit revenue goes
to grassroots organizations that specifically serve women and girls of color.
(00:51):
They say this lack of resources not only restricts the
work these nonprofits do in underserved communities, but in many
cases it's leading to major consequences like severe bird. Let's
go through this report now with a couple of the
women who made it happen, including Natanya Craig Aquendo. She
is the CEO of the Boston Women's Fund and Jessica
Martin is a research consultant for the Fund who helped
(01:12):
again put this report together. Thank you both for being
here and Natania. Before we get into the report, what
is the overall mission of the Boston Women's Fund? What
does the work you do?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Happy too?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We are the longest standing women's fund in Massachusetts, the
first to be established.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I feel very proud of that. We've been around for
forty two years.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
We're a greater Boston Women's Fund that is an intermediary.
We're dedicated to women and girls in gender expansive people
who support grassroot leaders and organizations because they are often
the community's first responders, the people who show up first,
the people who stay the longest, the people who drive
change when systems fall short.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So that's what we do.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
We support grassroot leaders that are doing work right in
their community.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
In forty two years, that is quite a good amount
of times. You really are deep in the city, know
what's going on.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, and our.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Founding mothers forty two years ago made it clear that
we were going to do philanthropy different So we don't
do it in the same way that others do it
in terms of like housing or education. Our priorities have
always been people, our elders, our young people, low income
women and girl girls. Right, So we have a different
way of doing things and we feel really.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Proud of that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I love that. So how did you get the idea
to come together then and do this work with Jessica
and the other researchers.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, so this study really grew out of what twenty
twenty taught us.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
To be honest, we saw that philanthropy.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Could move faster, it could reduce barriers, right, It trusted
leaders on the ground when urgency was really clear. It
also understood the moment, right, And I think that's because
we were all impacted by it. But one of the
things that we start to see change was or what
kind of stayed with us or a question we started
to ask probably around twenty twenty three, if I'm being honest,
(02:55):
is around this idea of why has the Urge Agency
changed even with philanthropy went on the ground, It hasn't.
And so we were really trying to interrogate that question
a little bit better understand what the practices were.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Why women of color.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
This is this is kind of an inside Joe, but
we would say to each other. We were trending back
in twenty twenty two, and we're no longer trending, right.
That's a horrible way to think about it, and I know,
but it's a book that I want to share. Yeah,
And so when we found out we weren't trending, we
were like, let's figure out why what has shifted? Because
there were huge commitments that came out from so many
people that brought hope to so many of our communities
(03:37):
and thinking that we were going to do business in
a different way. And so that was the that was
the premise of the report. I'm wondering if Jesse you
would add anything.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah, Well, I would just say that I think where
the research component of this comes in and the data
is that, you know, a lot of these things are
were our things that you know, especially folks like Natania
and the Boston Women's Time have been hearing about since
twenty but even before that.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
And at a certain point you do kind of want
to ground.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
These anecdotal stories when you're hearing them over and over
and over again from different people, but they're giving.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
The same message.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
You know, something's there, and for better or worse, people
do respond to data as some sort of empirical piece
of evidence that it's proof that it's happening. And so
I think this was a way to say, all right,
what kind of data can we come up with can
we look at that can help, I don't know, provide context,
give some numbers, give them have to the voices, or
(04:35):
help elucidate sort of what's happening at.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Another layer behind some of these stories. And so I
think that's where the research came in.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
But I think very quickly, and it's a key part
of the story of this research is that the hard
data we found out very clearly was not going to
get us tell the story sufficiently about what is really
happening with these leaders, the organizations and communities they serve,
which is why it became really important for it to
become not just a hard data report with the numbers
(05:07):
about funding or about populations or about inequities, but also
to really bring in the first hand voices in a methodical,
rigorous way of these leaders. And our partners are qualitative
research partners.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Sure, I mean, you can see a whole page full
of data and it means nothing unless you put context
to it, right, and you know, we'll talk about the
stories behind this in a moment. But let's talk about
the research itself. Jessica, I'm so curious about how you
got this done. How did you find these people to
talk to? Tell us a little bit about the research itself.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Sure, so amazingly the finding these people so so back
of that. Actually, we did start with sort of a
numbers okay, focus quantitative. Let's look and see what we
can gather from all this data that we know exists
out there that can tell us, you know, do some
quick analysis, see if these trends hold up, try to
(05:58):
identify what's missing and really what we found. I think
we found a lot of data, but we found out
really quickly that there's a lot missing. And so that's
where as I mentioned, bringing in some of these personal
voices in conversation to share their experiences became incredibly important,
and I will say we found these.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Voices through that data.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
We really took a rigorous approach of really thinking about
who is a grassroots leader, what is a grassroots organization,
how do we want to you know, what geography are
we talking about, what areas of focus?
Speaker 5 (06:31):
And went through and looked at, you know, publicly.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Available information on registered nonprofits. We looked at known funders
and other partners who focus on grassroots or focus on
women and girls and gender expansive folks. Looked at who
they give their money to. We tapped the BWF, BWF
network of grantees, partners, et cetera, and so really tried
(06:57):
to mine the whole ecosis a nonprofit ecosystem and do
some targeted outreach to those leaders and invite them to
participate in a series of focus groups and interviews to
discuss their experiences as leaders and as community members.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Frankly, these results shocked me when I read this report.
You found that only two tenths of a percent of
all the nonprofit revenue in Boston, and we have a
lot of nonprofits goes to organizations serving women and girls
of color and gender expansive youth. Break this down a
little bit more for us. How is this possible?
Speaker 4 (07:32):
The finding that funding to women and girls in general
and gender expansive folks is really a fraction of a
percent of the overall nonprofit revenue and giving is not
something new. There's been a lot of research both locally
and nationally that's shown that, and it's right about in
the year that we looked at the latest year of
(07:53):
data we looked at, there was about, in total in
Greater Boston one hundred and twelve billion dollars in revenue
shared among all of the nonprofits, and about one billion
of that went to women and girls specifically. But then
what we really what we really wanted to do was
dig a little bit deeper and understand how much of
that is going, Understand the story behind that one billion
(08:15):
dollars and where is it.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Going, who's it going to, and how much was going to.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Specifically women and girls and gender expansive folks of color.
And then within that grassroots organizations and organizations led by
women and gender expansive folks of color. And that's where
we found that of that that one billion, that's already
of a fraction a fraction of a percent, just twenty
five million dollars of that revenue was going to organizations
(08:40):
that explicitly serve women and girls and gender expansive people
of color.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
And that even within that one billion of.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Going to all women and girls in the region, more
than about sixty five percent of that goes to just
five organizations. And so it's not surprising we have really
strong women's education institutions like Wellesley College. We have upstream
USA Planned Parenthood that are really strong organizations. They have
(09:10):
big revenues, they have big budgets, they do a lot.
But then when you think about the remaining forty five
percent of organizations have to split up the rest of
that the remaining rather excuse me, you know, after those
five have to share just forty five percent of the revenue.
And that's where you start to look at not just
(09:30):
the total revenue, but the average revenue that these these
organizations are working with. There's just a real disparity underneath
there when you start to look underneath the hood, and
that has real implications, I think for the kind of
services that can be provided to meet the needs of
women and girls of color in the Greater Boston region.
We know that there are there are disparities at the
(09:51):
population levels of play out, and we want to make
sure that we have the right kinds of organizations in
the community to meet their needs and that they are
well funded, well resourced, and well networked to continue to
address these solutions. And I think unfortunately, what we found
in a lot of this data is that these things
don't add up. The numbers don't add up to Yeah,
(10:14):
we're just very under resource to address the needs of
the people that we want to serve.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
It shows that while here in Boston we clearly have
a deep history of redlining of racism. This is just
what we know about our city's history, and we have
made strides over the years and there has been progress,
But when it comes to fighting inequities like racism, clearly
in the nonprofit space, even not inherent, there is still
a stark divide here when it comes to philanthropists and
(10:41):
their priorities here. How do we turn this around? Like,
what do you suggest here in this report needs to
be done?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, I love this question, and thank you so much
for asking it. We really you know, we know that
we're asking something big, Right. We're saying that we want
to redesign the system so that it is actually serving
these who are most marginalized. Right, And we understand that's daunting,
But for us, it starts with just a few steps.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
The first one is that we don't actually believe there's
a divide in philanthropy. What I what I hope we're
bringing to this conversation is insight, Right, is that part
of what just didn't mention that I.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Do want to mention.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Is that why it took us so long to do
this report we thought we could do it in a year.
Is because when we were pulling information for smaller organizations,
it's incredibly hard.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
They're not in any other reports, So we had.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
To combe nine nineties to identify what those organizations are.
That means that what wasn't being countical wasn't being valued.
So I just wanted that's a full stop for us, right,
So for us even being able to say, here is
what the grassroot ecosystem looks like among gender expansive folks
and women and girls serving organizations, that felt really important.
(11:50):
I think, so getting that information out to philanthropy feel
is important. The other is start asking critical questions. Right,
let's just start asking the credit. Look at your own
look at your own portfolios. Start there. Maybe you have
the assumption that you are giving to women and girls
and gender expands at people of color. Maybe you're giving
to larger organizations and assuming that is getting trickled down.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
All we're asking as a first step is to do
the inventory.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
After you do that inventory, ask yourselves the questions are
our resources.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And I say this to individual donors as well as the.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Institutions, our resources going to where we want them to go.
You know, I think that that is an incredible first step.
The second step I would say is we have to
look at our practices. We are living in unprecedent times,
and in twenty twenty we moved fast as a sector.
We were able to like collectively come together and collaborate
really well. We have to bring a lot of that
(12:42):
back in a much quicker way than I think we
are because we have communities right now who are suffering
and who are in great need of our resources because
they have the vision to get communities through sure.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
And you know, you were also in the report talking
this is something I really wanted to touch on with
you about how biplop grassroots leaders essentially are dealing with
a massive burnout. And somebody might look at this and say, well, look,
we're all burned out, like the world is just heavy
right now, But you know, you are talking about a
different kind of burnout. So what is contributing to this
specifically for women and girls of color and gender expansive youth.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, so for us at the Boston Woman's Fun we
think that burnout is actually a structural outcome. What's contributing
to burnout is a responsibility without the resources.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's just real.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Is that when you're a smaller organization, you're often getting
five ten thousand dollars grants and that is what is
sustaining you. Unfortunately, those are not sustainable dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In this time.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
The leaders are carrying community expectations, they're responding to crisis
response right, organizational leadership, many of them have volunteer led organizations.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And I just can't say it again, is that burnout
is not.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
About an individual failure. It really is about our structural
systems and how we're getting resources to people. So there's
a triple bird in that many of us are holding right,
and that is of our own lived experience, right, being
a woman of color or gender expansive person of color.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
In this work this we're getting locked out of our.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Own resources, right, And the practices are not aligning with
how much we are giving out to our communities. And
so for us, we're just trying to write size that
we're trying to at least start the conversation both leaders,
by the way, the leaders who are on the ground
and philanthropic leaders about how we can be better partners.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, let's talk really quickly about another research point that
also really stood out to me and Jessica. We'll start
with you on this, and then i'd like to get
your thought on this, Natanya, about how black women are
leaving Boston. They're packing up, they're leaving Boston. Tell me
what you found in your research about how frequently black
women are leaving and why they're leaving.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
So in the report, one of the things we found
when looking at just demographic change in general and greater
Boston and how women and girls are changing and is
we did find that this really stark decline in the population,
particularly of young adult sort of college to early career
black women from both the city and the region. And
(15:20):
you know, unfortunately I can't really stay for sure why.
The numbers kind of just tell me who's coming, who's going.
That's not so much about why, how or where they're going.
But I will say, you know, the loss is most
stark within the city of Boston, less so in the region.
(15:40):
So it might mean that some women are just choosing
to move from Boston to Cambridge or Malden or Framingham.
But at the same time, the rest of the region
is still seeing this population loss in a way that
we're not seeing for other groups of women, particularly young women.
And so I think this does just from other reviews
(16:01):
of other research that's been done, including like the Greater
Boston Chamber of Commerce. They recently did a study of
millennial Greater Bostonians and found that young adult black women
were among the most likely to report having plans or
wanting to have plans to move out of Boston in
the near future. And a lot of that did come
down to just general feelings around cultural connectivity and racism.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Okay, no, and that's fair, Natania. I'd love to get
your thoughts on this, because, of course, affordability, because let's
be real, living in Boston right now, it is hard
for everybody to get by, and I'm sure if you're
a young person that contributes to it. But I'd love
to hear your thoughts on that. That one specific point
in the report.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I think that Nicole, you just said it, I don't
the story of Boston and how we are surviving the
city right and how expensive it has become is actually
it's not BWF story. It's all of our stories, right,
And so I think that the drivers are pretty consistent
and they have been right. It's housing costs, it's supportability,
it's about job opportunities, it is about culture.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I think Boston is such an interesting place.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I think when you are born and raised from Boston,
a girl like me, then you know exactly where to
go when you want to find your community when you are.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
An outside person. That is incredibly hard to do.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And we have so many incredible leaders, including Boston while black,
who is doing incredible work to make sure people feel seen.
But belonging is the thing you want to feel in
your city, and so where I'm not as worried about
where are the three hundred thousand black women and girls going?
What I am worried about is are they coming back?
You know, like can we convince them to come back?
(17:35):
Because what we are going to have as a leadership pipeline,
and we depend on our bipop women and gender expansive
leaders heavily, and so I think there's a larger question
for us to ask, which is what does that pipeline
need to look like? And how do we begin to
talk to people about Boston being theirs.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What do you think this means when it comes to
your viewpoint, Natanya, the city's nonprofit space. Clearly, you of
all people, are dialed into this, like you know what's
going on. But when you finish the report with Jessica
and everybody else, and you were sitting there going over
the numbers, did this change how you felt about the
city and its nonprofits or no?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think if fired something up in me, I'll be
honest about that.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I have sat with this number since twenty twenty. It
has been sitting with me even before twenty twenty, when
I understood where the dollars were going.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I've also noticed that the number.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Is not what gets people motivated, right, Like we've heard
this number before.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I think what's sitting.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
With me is that philanthropy without advocacy is not something
we can we can do any longer at the Boston
Women's Fund. So we have to advocate for better practices,
for better collaboration, for general operating support, for larger grands. Right,
these are the things for proximity to our leaders thinking
about things like site business. What if we got rid
(18:52):
of site business and we just showed up on a
day they needed us to volunteer. That is what partnership
looks like. We're not asking for everything to shift immediately.
We're asking for people to make small shifts so that
we can so that everyone here in Boston feels like
they belong and that they're protected, because I think that's
what philanthropy wants to do. But I think we have
(19:13):
some work to do to get there.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
So the report is out, and if people want to
go through all this incredible work that you and the
team have done, Jessica, how can they find it? What
should people keep in mind when they're reading this report
as well?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
So well they can find this report at the Boston
Women's Fund website.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
There you'll find this report.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We'll be also releasing a whole compendium of data that
under didn't make the cut perhaps in the first report,
if folks really want to dig into what's happening in
the population, in the community of organizations, et cetera. But
I really, you know, to kind of piggyback on what
Natanya was saying too, I think I really hope that
(19:52):
that people uses it as an opportunity to start to
think differently about what the nonprofit sector does look like
can look.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Like, and.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Really think differently about who's missing in when they think
about their work when they engage with the community. Because
a lot of this report and our findings about how
lack of resources lead to burnout leads to this sort
of vicious cycle. It really does start with the fact
that we're just not counting and not capturing some of
(20:23):
our most vulnerable and most essential people and leaders and organizations, you.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
Know, time and time again.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Even still I can say for certain we did not
capture every single grassroots organization in Greater Boston in this
research because the data just might not be there. Similarly,
some of our most vulnerable populations are not captured in
some of our standard data, and that's kind of a
double edged sword.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
And I think really.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Coming back to thinking about what gets measured gets valued,
what gets valued gets resourced, and what gets resourced actually
has the capacity to make that change we all want to.
So I think, you know, it's not about you know,
it's not doesn't have to be a zero sum or
a binary you do this or that.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Sure, it's really.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I think think different thinking differently about how you you know,
making sure you think about grassroots when you think about,
you know, how we source best source the community, how
we best resource the community. And then also I think
these numbers have the capacity to change. You know, I look,
there is one chart in the report that looks at
(21:31):
just the average philanthropic grant revenue to grassroots organizations led
by women and gender expansive folks of color, and you
see pretty clearly that the average amount went up in
the years twenty twenty twenty twenty one when people were
highly focused on this segment of the nonprofit sector, and
(21:51):
since then, in the final year that we were looking
and it was at the lowest level, the average revenue
had declined by twenty five percent. So clearly, this is
when you talk about trending and Natania talking about, you know,
feeling like we were trending in certain years and we've
stopped trending. You can see that really clearly in the data,
(22:11):
and you know, I hope that that elevates these organ
gives visibility to you know, a sector of the a
part of the nonprofit sector that really should be constantly trending.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah. Yeah, this is structural. Yeah, this is structural work
that is not TikTok trending stuff. People are not TikTok trending.
And you know, you're you're so right in that this
is work that needs to continue, and I'm really glad
that you all are putting the effort in here to
show us that this needs to be done. So let's
talk about then, if you are a small nonprofit that
(22:49):
needs some assistance, you want to get out there and
you want to get the resources of the Boston Women's
Fund or at least get involved, or you're a grassroots organization, Natanya,
how can they find you, how can they get in
help with it?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Behind us? Yes, we love to be in conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
So our resource allocation, I'm gonna be very honest, it
starts with communities. So that is a process that you
can be a part of. We don't our dollars don't
go out the door without our advisors who are community
folks helping us decide. So that's one way. Go to
our website www. Boston Women's Fund dot org Women's with
an S, and then you will be able to sign
(23:24):
up for our newsletter for specifically for those that we
are like, those that share their stories, the grassroot leaders
who are like what do I do with this this report?
How do I use it to advocate for myself? Please
sign up for us for our newsletter because We'll continue
to do seminars and workshops to help people think about
how they bring this work forward in a meaningful dialogue
(23:46):
between philanthropic leaders and grassroot leaders.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So please be in touch.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
And also for funders, let me just say this, we
are also here thinking about our own practices.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
We don't think that we have all the answers.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We're asking you to come to the so that we
can fill and think about these issues together.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So that's what I would say.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
All right, Boston Women's Fund dot org. And again you
can find the report there that Jessica and the whole
team worked so hard on and did all that digging
on and all the info you need to know for
anybody who wants to get in touch with you, Natania,
the work you're doing, Bostonwomen's Fund dot org. You're on
social media.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Right, we are on social media, so you should be
able to find us. And I just want to shout
out one other partner, which is the Center for Women
in Politics and Public Policy. They did all of the
focus groups and health space really beautiful for leaders who
are going through a lot, So I just wanted to
make sure we mention them as well.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, that's great, Okay, well, Natania Jessica, thank you for
the time, Thank you, thank you. Now, this report is
really intensive. There's a lot to go through here, a
lot of data, a lot of numbers. I will be
linking to it on our social media if you're curious
and you want to find out more about it, and
you can go find us on social media on Facebook
at facebook dot com slash New England Weekend. You can
(25:02):
also find me on Instagram. Just go to Nicole Davis News.
That's nic Cho l. E. Davis News. Be sure to
follow me, keep me posted with what's going on in
your neighborhood. I would love to hear all about it.
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join us again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week we come together right here we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Great to have you back with us this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. Greater Boston is full of nonprofits and
philanthropists that are dedicated to doing good and uplifting the
underserved all over the city in the region too. The
(00:29):
Boston Women's Fund has just released a brand new report
that's the first of its kind, and in this report,
they go through the financing that's coming from these philanthropists
for nonprofits, specifically where the money is going. What they
found is eye opening. They found a tiny fraction of
the billions of dollars in the city's nonprofit revenue goes
to grassroots organizations that specifically serve women and girls of color.
(00:51):
They say this lack of resources not only restricts the
work these nonprofits do in underserved communities, but in many
cases it's leading to major consequences like severe bird. Let's
go through this report now with a couple of the
women who made it happen, including Natanya Craig Aquendo. She
is the CEO of the Boston Women's Fund and Jessica
Martin is a research consultant for the Fund who helped
(01:12):
again put this report together. Thank you both for being
here and Natania. Before we get into the report, what
is the overall mission of the Boston Women's Fund? What
does the work you do?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Happy too?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We are the longest standing women's fund in Massachusetts, the
first to be established.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I feel very proud of that. We've been around for
forty two years.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
We're a greater Boston Women's Fund that is an intermediary.
We're dedicated to women and girls in gender expansive people
who support grassroot leaders and organizations because they are often
the community's first responders, the people who show up first,
the people who stay the longest, the people who drive
change when systems fall short.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So that's what we do.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
We support grassroot leaders that are doing work right in
their community.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
In forty two years, that is quite a good amount
of times. You really are deep in the city, know
what's going on.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, and our.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Founding mothers forty two years ago made it clear that
we were going to do philanthropy different So we don't
do it in the same way that others do it
in terms of like housing or education. Our priorities have
always been people, our elders, our young people, low income
women and girl girls. Right, So we have a different
way of doing things and we feel really.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Proud of that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I love that. So how did you get the idea
to come together then and do this work with Jessica
and the other researchers.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, so this study really grew out of what twenty
twenty taught us.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
To be honest, we saw that philanthropy.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Could move faster, it could reduce barriers, right, It trusted
leaders on the ground when urgency was really clear. It
also understood the moment, right, And I think that's because
we were all impacted by it. But one of the
things that we start to see change was or what
kind of stayed with us or a question we started
to ask probably around twenty twenty three, if I'm being honest,
(02:55):
is around this idea of why has the Urge Agency
changed even with philanthropy went on the ground, It hasn't.
And so we were really trying to interrogate that question
a little bit better understand what the practices were.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Why women of color.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
This is this is kind of an inside Joe, but
we would say to each other. We were trending back
in twenty twenty two, and we're no longer trending, right.
That's a horrible way to think about it, and I know,
but it's a book that I want to share. Yeah,
And so when we found out we weren't trending, we
were like, let's figure out why what has shifted? Because
there were huge commitments that came out from so many
people that brought hope to so many of our communities
(03:37):
and thinking that we were going to do business in
a different way. And so that was the that was
the premise of the report. I'm wondering if Jesse you
would add anything.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah, Well, I would just say that I think where
the research component of this comes in and the data
is that, you know, a lot of these things are
were our things that you know, especially folks like Natania
and the Boston Women's Time have been hearing about since
twenty but even before that.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
And at a certain point you do kind of want
to ground.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
These anecdotal stories when you're hearing them over and over
and over again from different people, but they're giving.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
The same message.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
You know, something's there, and for better or worse, people
do respond to data as some sort of empirical piece
of evidence that it's proof that it's happening. And so
I think this was a way to say, all right,
what kind of data can we come up with can
we look at that can help, I don't know, provide context,
give some numbers, give them have to the voices, or
(04:35):
help elucidate sort of what's happening at.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Another layer behind some of these stories. And so I
think that's where the research came in.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
But I think very quickly, and it's a key part
of the story of this research is that the hard
data we found out very clearly was not going to
get us tell the story sufficiently about what is really
happening with these leaders, the organizations and communities they serve,
which is why it became really important for it to
become not just a hard data report with the numbers
(05:07):
about funding or about populations or about inequities, but also
to really bring in the first hand voices in a methodical,
rigorous way of these leaders. And our partners are qualitative
research partners.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Sure, I mean, you can see a whole page full
of data and it means nothing unless you put context
to it, right, and you know, we'll talk about the
stories behind this in a moment. But let's talk about
the research itself. Jessica, I'm so curious about how you
got this done. How did you find these people to
talk to? Tell us a little bit about the research itself.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Sure, so amazingly the finding these people so so back
of that. Actually, we did start with sort of a
numbers okay, focus quantitative. Let's look and see what we
can gather from all this data that we know exists
out there that can tell us, you know, do some
quick analysis, see if these trends hold up, try to
(05:58):
identify what's missing and really what we found. I think
we found a lot of data, but we found out
really quickly that there's a lot missing. And so that's
where as I mentioned, bringing in some of these personal
voices in conversation to share their experiences became incredibly important,
and I will say we found these.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Voices through that data.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
We really took a rigorous approach of really thinking about
who is a grassroots leader, what is a grassroots organization,
how do we want to you know, what geography are
we talking about, what areas of focus?
Speaker 5 (06:31):
And went through and looked at, you know, publicly.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Available information on registered nonprofits. We looked at known funders
and other partners who focus on grassroots or focus on
women and girls and gender expansive folks. Looked at who
they give their money to. We tapped the BWF, BWF
network of grantees, partners, et cetera, and so really tried
(06:57):
to mine the whole ecosis a nonprofit ecosystem and do
some targeted outreach to those leaders and invite them to
participate in a series of focus groups and interviews to
discuss their experiences as leaders and as community members.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Frankly, these results shocked me when I read this report.
You found that only two tenths of a percent of
all the nonprofit revenue in Boston, and we have a
lot of nonprofits goes to organizations serving women and girls
of color and gender expansive youth. Break this down a
little bit more for us. How is this possible?
Speaker 4 (07:32):
The finding that funding to women and girls in general
and gender expansive folks is really a fraction of a
percent of the overall nonprofit revenue and giving is not
something new. There's been a lot of research both locally
and nationally that's shown that, and it's right about in
the year that we looked at the latest year of
(07:53):
data we looked at, there was about, in total in
Greater Boston one hundred and twelve billion dollars in revenue
shared among all of the nonprofits, and about one billion
of that went to women and girls specifically. But then
what we really what we really wanted to do was
dig a little bit deeper and understand how much of
that is going, Understand the story behind that one billion
(08:15):
dollars and where is it.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Going, who's it going to, and how much was going to.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Specifically women and girls and gender expansive folks of color.
And then within that grassroots organizations and organizations led by
women and gender expansive folks of color. And that's where
we found that of that that one billion, that's already
of a fraction a fraction of a percent, just twenty
five million dollars of that revenue was going to organizations
(08:40):
that explicitly serve women and girls and gender expansive people
of color.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
And that even within that one billion of.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Going to all women and girls in the region, more
than about sixty five percent of that goes to just
five organizations. And so it's not surprising we have really
strong women's education institutions like Wellesley College. We have upstream
USA Planned Parenthood that are really strong organizations. They have
(09:10):
big revenues, they have big budgets, they do a lot.
But then when you think about the remaining forty five
percent of organizations have to split up the rest of
that the remaining rather excuse me, you know, after those
five have to share just forty five percent of the revenue.
And that's where you start to look at not just
(09:30):
the total revenue, but the average revenue that these these
organizations are working with. There's just a real disparity underneath
there when you start to look underneath the hood, and
that has real implications, I think for the kind of
services that can be provided to meet the needs of
women and girls of color in the Greater Boston region.
We know that there are there are disparities at the
(09:51):
population levels of play out, and we want to make
sure that we have the right kinds of organizations in
the community to meet their needs and that they are
well funded, well resourced, and well networked to continue to
address these solutions. And I think unfortunately, what we found
in a lot of this data is that these things
don't add up. The numbers don't add up to Yeah,
(10:14):
we're just very under resource to address the needs of
the people that we want to serve.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
It shows that while here in Boston we clearly have
a deep history of redlining of racism. This is just
what we know about our city's history, and we have
made strides over the years and there has been progress,
But when it comes to fighting inequities like racism, clearly
in the nonprofit space, even not inherent, there is still
a stark divide here when it comes to philanthropists and
(10:41):
their priorities here. How do we turn this around? Like,
what do you suggest here in this report needs to
be done?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, I love this question, and thank you so much
for asking it. We really you know, we know that
we're asking something big, Right. We're saying that we want
to redesign the system so that it is actually serving
these who are most marginalized. Right, And we understand that's daunting,
But for us, it starts with just a few steps.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
The first one is that we don't actually believe there's
a divide in philanthropy. What I what I hope we're
bringing to this conversation is insight, Right, is that part
of what just didn't mention that I.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Do want to mention.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Is that why it took us so long to do
this report we thought we could do it in a year.
Is because when we were pulling information for smaller organizations,
it's incredibly hard.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
They're not in any other reports, So we had.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
To combe nine nineties to identify what those organizations are.
That means that what wasn't being countical wasn't being valued.
So I just wanted that's a full stop for us, right,
So for us even being able to say, here is
what the grassroot ecosystem looks like among gender expansive folks
and women and girls serving organizations, that felt really important.
(11:50):
I think, so getting that information out to philanthropy feel
is important. The other is start asking critical questions. Right,
let's just start asking the credit. Look at your own
look at your own portfolios. Start there. Maybe you have
the assumption that you are giving to women and girls
and gender expands at people of color. Maybe you're giving
to larger organizations and assuming that is getting trickled down.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
All we're asking as a first step is to do
the inventory.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
After you do that inventory, ask yourselves the questions are
our resources.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And I say this to individual donors as well as the.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Institutions, our resources going to where we want them to go.
You know, I think that that is an incredible first step.
The second step I would say is we have to
look at our practices. We are living in unprecedent times,
and in twenty twenty we moved fast as a sector.
We were able to like collectively come together and collaborate
really well. We have to bring a lot of that
(12:42):
back in a much quicker way than I think we
are because we have communities right now who are suffering
and who are in great need of our resources because
they have the vision to get communities through sure.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
And you know, you were also in the report talking
this is something I really wanted to touch on with
you about how biplop grassroots leaders essentially are dealing with
a massive burnout. And somebody might look at this and say, well, look,
we're all burned out, like the world is just heavy
right now, But you know, you are talking about a
different kind of burnout. So what is contributing to this
specifically for women and girls of color and gender expansive youth.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, so for us at the Boston Woman's Fun we
think that burnout is actually a structural outcome. What's contributing
to burnout is a responsibility without the resources.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's just real.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Is that when you're a smaller organization, you're often getting
five ten thousand dollars grants and that is what is
sustaining you. Unfortunately, those are not sustainable dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In this time.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
The leaders are carrying community expectations, they're responding to crisis
response right, organizational leadership, many of them have volunteer led organizations.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And I just can't say it again, is that burnout
is not.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
About an individual failure. It really is about our structural
systems and how we're getting resources to people. So there's
a triple bird in that many of us are holding right,
and that is of our own lived experience, right, being
a woman of color or gender expansive person of color.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
In this work this we're getting locked out of our.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Own resources, right, And the practices are not aligning with
how much we are giving out to our communities. And
so for us, we're just trying to write size that
we're trying to at least start the conversation both leaders,
by the way, the leaders who are on the ground
and philanthropic leaders about how we can be better partners.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, let's talk really quickly about another research point that
also really stood out to me and Jessica. We'll start
with you on this, and then i'd like to get
your thought on this, Natanya, about how black women are
leaving Boston. They're packing up, they're leaving Boston. Tell me
what you found in your research about how frequently black
women are leaving and why they're leaving.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
So in the report, one of the things we found
when looking at just demographic change in general and greater
Boston and how women and girls are changing and is
we did find that this really stark decline in the population,
particularly of young adult sort of college to early career
black women from both the city and the region. And
(15:20):
you know, unfortunately I can't really stay for sure why.
The numbers kind of just tell me who's coming, who's going.
That's not so much about why, how or where they're going.
But I will say, you know, the loss is most
stark within the city of Boston, less so in the region.
(15:40):
So it might mean that some women are just choosing
to move from Boston to Cambridge or Malden or Framingham.
But at the same time, the rest of the region
is still seeing this population loss in a way that
we're not seeing for other groups of women, particularly young women.
And so I think this does just from other reviews
(16:01):
of other research that's been done, including like the Greater
Boston Chamber of Commerce. They recently did a study of
millennial Greater Bostonians and found that young adult black women
were among the most likely to report having plans or
wanting to have plans to move out of Boston in
the near future. And a lot of that did come
down to just general feelings around cultural connectivity and racism.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Okay, no, and that's fair, Natania. I'd love to get
your thoughts on this, because, of course, affordability, because let's
be real, living in Boston right now, it is hard
for everybody to get by, and I'm sure if you're
a young person that contributes to it. But I'd love
to hear your thoughts on that. That one specific point
in the report.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I think that Nicole, you just said it, I don't
the story of Boston and how we are surviving the
city right and how expensive it has become is actually
it's not BWF story. It's all of our stories, right,
And so I think that the drivers are pretty consistent
and they have been right. It's housing costs, it's supportability,
it's about job opportunities, it is about culture.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I think Boston is such an interesting place.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I think when you are born and raised from Boston,
a girl like me, then you know exactly where to
go when you want to find your community when you are.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
An outside person. That is incredibly hard to do.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And we have so many incredible leaders, including Boston while black,
who is doing incredible work to make sure people feel seen.
But belonging is the thing you want to feel in
your city, and so where I'm not as worried about
where are the three hundred thousand black women and girls going?
What I am worried about is are they coming back?
You know, like can we convince them to come back?
(17:35):
Because what we are going to have as a leadership pipeline,
and we depend on our bipop women and gender expansive
leaders heavily, and so I think there's a larger question
for us to ask, which is what does that pipeline
need to look like? And how do we begin to
talk to people about Boston being theirs.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What do you think this means when it comes to
your viewpoint, Natanya, the city's nonprofit space. Clearly, you of
all people, are dialed into this, like you know what's
going on. But when you finish the report with Jessica
and everybody else, and you were sitting there going over
the numbers, did this change how you felt about the
city and its nonprofits or no?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think if fired something up in me, I'll be
honest about that.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I have sat with this number since twenty twenty. It
has been sitting with me even before twenty twenty, when
I understood where the dollars were going.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I've also noticed that the number.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Is not what gets people motivated, right, Like we've heard
this number before.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I think what's sitting.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
With me is that philanthropy without advocacy is not something
we can we can do any longer at the Boston
Women's Fund. So we have to advocate for better practices,
for better collaboration, for general operating support, for larger grands. Right,
these are the things for proximity to our leaders thinking
about things like site business. What if we got rid
(18:52):
of site business and we just showed up on a
day they needed us to volunteer. That is what partnership
looks like. We're not asking for everything to shift immediately.
We're asking for people to make small shifts so that
we can so that everyone here in Boston feels like
they belong and that they're protected, because I think that's
what philanthropy wants to do. But I think we have
(19:13):
some work to do to get there.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
So the report is out, and if people want to
go through all this incredible work that you and the
team have done, Jessica, how can they find it? What
should people keep in mind when they're reading this report
as well?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
So well they can find this report at the Boston
Women's Fund website.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
There you'll find this report.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We'll be also releasing a whole compendium of data that
under didn't make the cut perhaps in the first report,
if folks really want to dig into what's happening in
the population, in the community of organizations, et cetera. But
I really, you know, to kind of piggyback on what
Natanya was saying too, I think I really hope that
(19:52):
that people uses it as an opportunity to start to
think differently about what the nonprofit sector does look like
can look.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Like, and.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Really think differently about who's missing in when they think
about their work when they engage with the community. Because
a lot of this report and our findings about how
lack of resources lead to burnout leads to this sort
of vicious cycle. It really does start with the fact
that we're just not counting and not capturing some of
(20:23):
our most vulnerable and most essential people and leaders and organizations, you.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
Know, time and time again.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Even still I can say for certain we did not
capture every single grassroots organization in Greater Boston in this
research because the data just might not be there. Similarly,
some of our most vulnerable populations are not captured in
some of our standard data, and that's kind of a
double edged sword.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
And I think really.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Coming back to thinking about what gets measured gets valued,
what gets valued gets resourced, and what gets resourced actually
has the capacity to make that change we all want to.
So I think, you know, it's not about you know,
it's not doesn't have to be a zero sum or
a binary you do this or that.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Sure, it's really.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I think think different thinking differently about how you you know,
making sure you think about grassroots when you think about,
you know, how we source best source the community, how
we best resource the community. And then also I think
these numbers have the capacity to change. You know, I look,
there is one chart in the report that looks at
(21:31):
just the average philanthropic grant revenue to grassroots organizations led
by women and gender expansive folks of color, and you
see pretty clearly that the average amount went up in
the years twenty twenty twenty twenty one when people were
highly focused on this segment of the nonprofit sector, and
(21:51):
since then, in the final year that we were looking
and it was at the lowest level, the average revenue
had declined by twenty five percent. So clearly, this is
when you talk about trending and Natania talking about, you know,
feeling like we were trending in certain years and we've
stopped trending. You can see that really clearly in the data,
(22:11):
and you know, I hope that that elevates these organ
gives visibility to you know, a sector of the a
part of the nonprofit sector that really should be constantly trending.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah. Yeah, this is structural. Yeah, this is structural work
that is not TikTok trending stuff. People are not TikTok trending.
And you know, you're you're so right in that this
is work that needs to continue, and I'm really glad
that you all are putting the effort in here to
show us that this needs to be done. So let's
talk about then, if you are a small nonprofit that
(22:49):
needs some assistance, you want to get out there and
you want to get the resources of the Boston Women's
Fund or at least get involved, or you're a grassroots organization, Natanya,
how can they find you, how can they get in
help with it?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Behind us? Yes, we love to be in conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
So our resource allocation, I'm gonna be very honest, it
starts with communities. So that is a process that you
can be a part of. We don't our dollars don't
go out the door without our advisors who are community
folks helping us decide. So that's one way. Go to
our website www. Boston Women's Fund dot org Women's with
an S, and then you will be able to sign
(23:24):
up for our newsletter for specifically for those that we
are like, those that share their stories, the grassroot leaders
who are like what do I do with this this report?
How do I use it to advocate for myself? Please
sign up for us for our newsletter because We'll continue
to do seminars and workshops to help people think about
how they bring this work forward in a meaningful dialogue
(23:46):
between philanthropic leaders and grassroot leaders.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So please be in touch.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
And also for funders, let me just say this, we
are also here thinking about our own practices.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
We don't think that we have all the answers.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We're asking you to come to the so that we
can fill and think about these issues together.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So that's what I would say.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
All right, Boston Women's Fund dot org. And again you
can find the report there that Jessica and the whole
team worked so hard on and did all that digging
on and all the info you need to know for
anybody who wants to get in touch with you, Natania,
the work you're doing, Bostonwomen's Fund dot org. You're on
social media.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Right, we are on social media, so you should be
able to find us. And I just want to shout
out one other partner, which is the Center for Women
in Politics and Public Policy. They did all of the
focus groups and health space really beautiful for leaders who
are going through a lot, So I just wanted to
make sure we mention them as well.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, that's great, Okay, well, Natania Jessica, thank you for
the time, Thank you, thank you. Now, this report is
really intensive. There's a lot to go through here, a
lot of data, a lot of numbers. I will be
linking to it on our social media if you're curious
and you want to find out more about it, and
you can go find us on social media on Facebook
at facebook dot com slash New England Weekend. You can
(25:02):
also find me on Instagram. Just go to Nicole Davis News.
That's nic Cho l. E. Davis News. Be sure to
follow me, keep me posted with what's going on in
your neighborhood. I would love to hear all about it.
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join us again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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