Who Works in the Nonprofit Sector?

Race to Lead respondents were more diverse in 2025, especially by race, LGBTQ+ identity, and disability.

By 2025, people of color comprised a majority of respondents (52%), with Black respondents alone accounting for more than one-quarter of the sample (26%). At the same time, cisgender women continued to make up the majority of respondents. The White share of the sample declined from 61% in 2022 to 48% in 2025. This substantial change likely reflects differences in who participated in the survey rather than a rapid transformation of the nonprofit sector itself. Outreach for the 2025 survey was intentionally designed to reach nonprofit workers across a broad range of racial and gender identities, geographic locations, roles, and organizational contexts. The outreach strategy may help explain some of the differences between the 2025 sample and earlier waves.

Other characteristics also changed. LGBTQ+ identification increased from 21% in 2016 to 31% in 2025, while disability identification rose from 10% in 2019 to 26% in 2025. These patterns may reflect some combination of real changes in who works in the nonprofit sector, greater comfort with self-identification, and the particular characteristics of each survey sample. 

Millennials remained the largest generation represented in 2025, at 46%, while the share of Gen Z respondents grew to 12%. Nearly one-third of respondents were either immigrants themselves (21%) or the children of immigrants (10%). Together, these patterns underscore the range of identities and experiences among Race to Lead respondents. Understanding who is represented—and how people who responded changed across waves—is essential for interpreting the workplace experiences, inequities, and leadership dynamics explored throughout the Insight Hub.

Most Race to Lead respondents work in management or executive roles, and mid-career workers make up the largest career-stage group.

Managers have made up the largest share of respondents in all four survey years. In 2025, 46% of respondents worked in management, 28% in executive leadership, and 27% in staff roles. Altogether, nearly three-quarters (73%) worked in management or executive positions.

Respondents also brought considerable nonprofit experience. In 2025, mid-career respondents—those with 6 to 15 years of nonprofit experience—made up the largest group, at 42%. Another 21% were senior-career respondents with 16 to 25 years of experience, and 13% were veterans with more than 25 years in the sector.

Organizational roles differed predictably by career stage. More than half of early-career respondents worked in staff roles, while management was the most common role among mid- and senior-career respondents. Among veterans, more than half worked in executive leadership. These patterns show that respondents with more nonprofit experience were more likely to hold positions with greater formal authority.

Frontline status describes the type of work someone does, not their level within an organization; frontline workers may hold staff, management, or executive roles. In 2025, respondents of color were substantially more likely than White respondents to work in frontline roles—31% compared with 23%. This difference shows that frontline responsibilities were not distributed evenly across racial groups in the 2025 sample. Together, these patterns suggest that race is associated with not only who works in the nonprofit sector, but also the kinds of work people are most likely to perform throughout their careers.

Race to Lead respondents work in many kinds of nonprofits across the country. Mid-sized organizations remain the most common, while shared leadership has become more common.

In every survey year, roughly half of respondents worked in mid-sized organizations with annual budgets between $500,000 and $5 million. In 2025, 53% worked in mid-sized organizations. Respondents also came from organizations across the full range of budget sizes, from organizations with budgets below $500,000 to those with budgets above $20 million. 

Respondents worked across a wide range of nonprofit focus areas. Direct Services and Health—the category that includes human and social services, health and mental health, housing and homelessness, and legal services—was the largest, representing 28% of respondents. Advocacy, Organizing, and Civic Engagement was the second largest at 20%, followed by Philanthropy and Capacity Building at 14%. 

Race to Lead also reached nonprofit workers across the country. Looking across the 2019, 2022, and 2025 surveys, respondents reported working in organizations in every state and several U.S. territories. The largest shares came from California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, and Texas. These patterns reflect both the size of nonprofit ecosystems in those states and the strength of Race to Lead’s partner and network relationships. 

Shared leadership was the clearest change in organizational context. In 2019, 7% of respondents worked in organizations with co-leadership or another shared leadership model. By 2025, that share had grown to nearly one-quarter (23%). Although single executive director or CEO models remain the dominant structure, the increasing share of survey respondents working in organizations with shared leadership arrangements suggests that alternative approaches to nonprofit leadership are becoming a more common feature of the sector.