How can we empower women to lead nonprofits?

Last week I commented on Amy Sample Ward’s post about Clay Shirky’s Rant on Women. He wrote about how women don’t seem to do much self-aggrandizement, and therefore don’t rise to leadership positions as much. I wondered if that was the whole story.

While the nonprofit field is roughly 60% women, what is nonprofit leadership like?

How many women sit on your nonprofit board? How many female CEOs and VPs do you know? How many women do you see presenting at conferences? How many female Executive Directors do you know? If you’re anything like me, you’ll have seen boards, speakers, and executive leadership that is overwhelmingly male.

A recent New York Times Article talked about women leading boards in Norway.

“Norway passed a law in 2003 mandating that women make up 40 percent of membership on company boards. At the time, only 7 percent of board seats were held by women. Full compliance was reached in 2008.”

The theory went that if more women sat on corporate boards, more women would become CEOs and VPs. It hasn’t happened yet, but it could.

Should we pass similar laws in America? What do you think would happen if we did?

Slideshow on Women in Norway

What do you think would help more women become CEOs and VPs?

How do you think leadership would be different if more women ran nonprofits?

What would empower you to lead as a fundraiser, and as a nonprofit executive?

Would you like more responsibility? A certification or more money attached to achieving nonprofit fundraising goals?

Should we make quotas, like Norway, for women on our nonprofit and for profit boards?

In my tenure at various nonprofit organizations, I’ve seen plenty of women in middle management or at the lower rungs of the organization. Perhaps the question should be, how can we empower women currently inside nonprofit organizations to lead them?

If what Nicolas Kristof of the New York Times says is true, and the economic fate of the world lies in helping empower women, then I wonder if there are any NGOs working on empowering women to lead nonprofits.