Nearly half of international social impact organisations now led by a woman

This has risen 3% from last year, while the proportion of organisations with an equitable level of gender representation has topped 50% for the first time, according to the FAIR SHARE Monitor 2022.

The results of this year’s FAIR SHARE Monitor show that the gap between women representation in staff and in leadership positions is decreasing, with women making up 61% of the social impact sector’s workforce and occupying half of leadership positions, according to the report. Last year, women made up 63% of staff and 46% of leadership.

However, a man’s chances of being promoted are still twice as high as a woman’s, and, among the 45 organisations holding this data, Black & Indigenous Women of Colour (BIWoC) make up only around a third of women leaders.

More key findings

– Nearly half of boards (27 of 61) have a woman as chair – but this marks a 3% decrease since last year.

– 52% of boards are made up of a majority of men, and only 15% are gender-balanced.

– Gender-equitable boards have increased from 11% to 15% since last year.

– However, boards are still slightly more likely than senior management teams to be male-dominated, and there are more senior management teams made up of mostly women.

– 567 out of 1214 leadership positions in organisations with data on BIWoC are held by women. Of these, 32% are women of colour: similar to last year’s figure.

– 21 of the 45 organisations with BIWoC data are led by women, but only 4 are BIWoC – a 5% decrease from last year.

– 78% of organisations who have made the FAIR SHARE Commitment to achieve gender equity by 2030 at the latest – and share their data annually for the Monitor – currently have a fair share of women in leadership positions.

The Monitor explained

The annual FAIR SHARE Monitor measures and tracks gender equity in the international social impact sector, looking at total number of staff, women on staff, BIWoC on staff, gender or diversity policy, women on supervisory board, women on senior management team, and BIWoC on both of these.

From data either received from organisations or researched for them, FAIR SHARE creates a ranking of organisations based on who has a fair share of women in their leadership and who doesn’t. The first Monitor was published in 2019 and results will be published annually until 2030. The progress, stagnation or regress of each organisation is measured and made transparent from year to year.

This year, 61 leading social impact sector organisations are included as part of the monitor, including 11 new organisations, and representing 282,593 employees. 45 had data on BIWoC.