Heather Carpenter’s list of next generation leaders inspired me last week. But when I saw the official NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50, I got so riled up that I wrote a letter to the publisher. There were barely any people of color on that list, and I feel that it is really time for us to start pointing that out when we see it, instead of just saying “well, that’s the way it is.” Below is the letter I emailed to John McIlquham, the publisher of The NonProfit Times. Hopefully he will write me back.

In the meantime, please help me add to my list in the comments, so we can all learn from each other about the depth of multicultural leadership in our sector. How do we pay this forward so that we can begin to build a culture of honoring contributions from people of color in the nonprofit field?

Dear John,

Like my colleagues in the nonprofit field, I am an avid reader of The NonProfit Times, as the “premier business publication written for nonprofit executives.” As your Web site notes, The NonProfit Times reaches 38,000 executive decision makers, and we all appreciate the timely information that is presented in each issue. That is why it shocked me to see that http://fromthepipeline.blogspot.com/
[email protected]
703-965-6631

  1. Julian Bond, NAACP Board Chair
  2. Emmett Carson, President, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
  3. Patrick Corvington, Senior Associate, Annie E. Casey Foundation
  4. Erica Hunt, President, 21st Century Foundation
  5. Diane Bell-McCoy, Associated Black Charities
  6. Michael Lomax, United Negro College Fund
  7. Marc Morial, President, National Urban League
  8. Ron McKinley, Fieldstone Alliance, Kellogg Action Lab
  9. Bao Vang, Leadership Program Coordinator, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits
  10. Terri Lee Freeman, President, Community Foundation for the National Capital Region
  11. Mai Moua, Leadership Paradigms
  12. Janet Murguía, President, National Council of La Raza
  13. Rodney M. Jackson, President, National Center for Black Philanthropy
  14. Diana Campoamor, President, Hispanics in Philanthropy
  15. Albert Ruesga, Chair, Hispanics in Philanthropy, Vice President Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, blogger at White Courtesy Telephone
  16. Lisa Morton, Nonprofit HR Solutions
  17. Trista Harris, Executive Director, Headwaters Foundation for Justice
  18. Trabian Shorters, Knight Foundation
  19. Maxine Baker, African American Nonprofit Network
  20. Greg Taylor, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
  21. Van Jones, formerly Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
  22. Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone
  23. Cristina Lopez, National Hispana Leadership Institute, formerly Center for Community Change
  24. Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director, Center for Community Change
  25. Beatriz Otero, CEO, CentroNia
  26. Linda Nguyen, Director of Civic Engagement, Alliance for Families and Children
  27. Priscilla Hung, Co-Director of Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training
  28. Mia Herndon, Executive Director, Third Wave Foundation
  29. Alison Lugo Saenz, Associate Director, The Grantmaking School of Grand Valley State
  30. Sonya Garcia Ulibarri, Executive Director –Youth Build, Denver, Colorado
  31. Eddy Morales, - Center for Community Change, Generation Change Program
  32. Taij Moteellal – Executive Director, Resource Generation
  33. Phuong Quoch, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy
  34. Dwayne Patterson, Southern Organizer for Center for Community Change, Black America’s Organizing Project
  35. Tracey Greene Dorsett – Director of Evaluation, National Rural Funders Collaborative
  36. Glen O’Gilvie, Center for Nonprofit Advancement
  37. Joanna Opot, Executive Director, StartingBloc
  38. Jeremy Foreman, Executive Director, Hands On Ogeechee
  39. Elsie L. Scott, President, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc.
  40. Cassandra Butts, formerly Fund for American Studies, Obama Campaign
  41. Mando Rayo, Hands on Central Texas
  42. Michael Watson, Girl Scouts USA
  43. Benjamin Jealous, President, NAACP
  44. Luz Vega-Marquis, President, Marguerite Casey Foundation
  45. Wenda Weekes Moore, Secretary, Board of Directors, The W.K. Kellogg Foundation
  46. Lillian Cruz, formerly with The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
  47. Antonio Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
  48. Gary Flowers, Black Leadership Forum
  49. H. Alexander Robinson, National Black Justice Coalition
  50. Dorothy Height, National Council of Negro Women

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imageRosetta Thurman is an emerging nonprofit leader of color working and living in the Washington, DC area.  She holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and blogs about nonprofit leadership and management issues at Perspectives From the Pipeline.

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