Who Leads Economic Development? Demographics of Development Organizational Leaders

What role should and do development organizations play in shaping development? The last half-century has seen an explosion of the development sector, all the way from the creation of international financial and governing bodies to a plethora of small private voluntary organizations (PVOs) focused on development efforts.  We have seen a growth and professionalization of the development field. Many of these organizations receive their funding from donors and states in the global North.  Within the United States, many of these PVOs are religious in nature, and derive funding from religious organizations and individuals.

Over the last several decades, development actors (faith-base development actors included) have moved more from relief-based to economic development to advocacy-based understandings of “development.”  There has been a change in focus from dealing with symptoms of poverty and inequality to engaging an economic system that creates inequality and poverty. However, even as development organizations have taken on more complex approaches and understandings, it is often still these organizations that have the power to decide what and how development looks like.  While many of these organizations engage people on the ground, and use community-based methods and implementation, development organizations themselves still hold much of the power in deciding how development should and will be done.

Given this dynamic, I am interested in if and how development organizations 1) seek to diversify their leadership and 2) some of the impacts of such diversified leadership.  Studies within the business and nonprofit world have considered the benefits of increased racial and gender diversity on boards and in leadership, but few of these studies focus specifically on how this matters in a globalized world where international power dynamics are at play. 

In my research, I’m particularly interested in issues of board composition, and assessing who are the professionals leading global development professional organizations. For this paper, I rely on two key sources of data. The first is 2010 tax data from over 50 organizations in the United States working in the development sector (many with a religious identity).  The second is interviews with 5-10 nonprofit development leaders regarding diversity on their boards and on their leadership teams, to better understand the reasons for pursuing diversity. In my research, I find that voices from women, non-whites, and international actors are often missing. Given that women and racial minorities within society are often those most economically marginalized, this finding is noteworthy. 

In this paper, I will first provide a general overview of the profession of development organizations within the United States, and demographics of those who are leading this industry (with attention to variation among organizations). I will also consider why such diversity is valued or not valued.  Second, I will look at how the demographics of those leading impacts the activities of development in which organizations are engaged, as well as the type of engagement that they have with local actors on the ground.