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.

The Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe brings together local and pan-European civil society organisations and funders to support progress in the areas of gender equality and women’s rights in Europe.

Created by representatives of Foundation CHANEL, the King Baudouin Foundation and the L’Oréal Fund for Women, and hosted by the Network of European Foundations (NEF), it has just completed its first round of funding.

This saw it allocate 13 grants of up to €50,000 to small, frontline organisations in 10 countries across the European Union (Croatia, Belgium, France, Hungary, Latvia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Czech Republic, Germany), distributed equally between Eastern, Southern and Northern Europe.

The grantees were selected by an independent group of gender equality experts from women’s funds, philanthropy, academia, CSOs and the private sector, and specialise in areas including violence against women, health and social protection, access to education and training, access to economic resources, entrepreneurship, and digital divide. Their projects include support services for women victims of domestic violence in Hungary, self-led advocacy from refugee women in Germany, grants to feminist social entrepreneurs in Spain, and the empowerment of Roma activists in Latvia.

Marion Schaefer, Managing Director of Fondation CHANEL Europe, commented:

“One of the lessons learnt from the Covid-19 crisis is that there is a momentum for us all, donors, to work together, to pool resources because collaboration will be essential to solving the social crisis that lies ahead of us. In that sense, the Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe is a philanthropic innovation, increasing for the first-time collaboration for gender equality in the philanthropic sector. We hope this will help building resilient movements and long-lasting change.”

In addition, the Alliance is developing a learning platform to share knowledge with donors, women’s organisations, support networks and other stakeholders, including the public and the media. It also aims to produce research, with which it hopes to influence policy initiatives.

The Alliance believes it is the first collaborative effort of its kind in Europe. It is currently seeking other partners, aiming to attract donors that are not currently giving in this historically under-funded field in Europe with the ultimate goal of enabling a just society for all.

Picture by Anna Shvets on Pexels

From the start, when Skateistan worked on the streets of Kabul, our programmes had a girls-first policy. It began with skateboarding, but eventually grew to incorporate education too.  By giving girls and women at least 50 percent of the opportunities available in our programming, as well as prioritising them for professional opportunities within the organisation, we grew an organisation that put women first.

The girls-first approach came about from the lack of opportunities for girls in civil society in Afghanistan, a country where women have significantly less rights and freedoms than men. Historically, foreign interventions claiming to want to establish gender equality in the region have failed to do so. We hoped that young people, especially women, could become the change and enact the transformation that they wanted to see. So, our approach was to support a localisation of women’s empowerment through strong female Afghan role models.

Making the policy a reality

The important part of implementing this policy is to put adequate resources towards it. A girl might need 50 percent more resources to have the same opportunity as a boy. For example, we provide transport and home visits to increase girls’ participation. We do not do that for boys. It might cost 10-15 percent more to employ women long-term in an organisation, which we accept because without women in the workforce, you lose much more than the extra that you put in. Globally, women face discrimination and to improve their participation in the workplace and other parts of society, it is essential to provide them with extra resources (not only resources equal to those that men receive).

Skaters in Johannesburg. Photo by Andy Buchanan for Skateistan

Appointing women leaders

Having women leaders at all our schools globally was intended to create role models for girls attending our programmes and we really see the effect of this: 80 percent of our educators are former students.

And when done right, from the start and from the bottom up, inclusion also means more effective programmes. For example, girls started telling us early on that they wanted an indoor skating park, which never would have occurred to me as white man who feels comfortable skating everywhere.

Filling some of the top positions in the countries where we work with women candidates also made Skateistan a more inclusive workplace for women. When women asked about bringing their babies to work or flexible working hours, we listened and adjusted because we value them and want to keep them in these roles. This became our new normal and it makes our organisation a more attractive place for women to come work.

Lessons for change

It’s really hard to earmark half of the opportunities for women because of the way that most societies are set up. Many people, including women, find it hard to “positively discriminate” for women. I needed to repeat the importance of it on at least a weekly basis for 14 years. Never stop drumming the message of girls first. Otherwise the scales will not tip.

Keep on advocating. Making sure younger voices are also heard will create sustainability. There are many young girls that are ready to lead.

Read more

This story is one of ten featured in a new book of case studies from organisations committed to gender equality, produced by the FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders. All 10 organisations in the Leading for Change resource have made the FAIR SHARE Commitment, pledging to achieve gender equity in their leadership by 2030. Read more here: ‘Leading for Change: Case studies from organisations committed to gender equality.’

Oliver Percovich, Skateistan

About Oliver Percovich

Oliver Percovich first skated in an empty pool at the age of six while growing up in Papua New Guinea. In 2007, Oliver moved to Afghanistan from Australia when his then girlfriend took a job in Kabul. Looking to explore, he would skate the city, and street-working kids would follow him around and ask to try. In 2008, Oliver founded Skateistan, a grassroots ‘Sport for Development’ project on the streets of Kabul. The international organisation, based in Berlin, now runs Skate Schools and programmes for children aged 5-17 in Afghanistan, Cambodia, South Africa, and Jordan. With a focus on girls, youth living with a disability and children from low-income background, the organisation’s aim is to give youth the opportunity to become leaders for a better world.

About FAIR SHARE

FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders was founded in 2019 by a group of women in the wake of reports of sexual abuse and other abuse of power in the international social impact sector. It believes that to tackle the world’s problems, we need a sector that walks the talk on inclusivity, equity and representation. To contribute to that transformation, it takes a two-pronged approach. It holds the sector to account for gender equity by monitoring the proportion of women leaders in the sector on an annual basis with the FAIR SHARE Monitor; and advocates for Feminist Leadership as a tool for challenging dominant understandings of leadership and transforming the culture of organisations.