Column: Dr Paugh On Women’s Day & More
[Column written by Dr Nicola Paugh]
Leading up to International Women’s Day this March, we rightly celebrate women’s leadership, resilience, and progress. In Bermuda’s nonprofit sector, there is much to celebrate. Women are not merely participating — they are leading.
Across the Nonprofit Alliance of Bermuda [NAB], which represents 80 nonprofit organisations, women make up the vast majority of leadership roles. Within NAB’s membership, approximately 80 per cent of nonprofit leaders are women. This pattern extends throughout the workforce. Data from the Centennial Bermuda Foundation, drawn from 53 grantee organisations, shows that women account for 71 per cent of nonprofit employees. NAB recent workforce survey shows over 80% of the workforce is female.
For women’s rights advocates, this stands in contrast to many corporate spaces, where men continue to be overrepresented. In Bermuda’s nonprofit sector, women are rising into leadership roles at higher rates than men.
But this is only half the story.
Many across the nonprofit sector would agree that the work is chronically underpaid and undervalued and that this reality intersects directly with gender. While the historical roots of charitable work help explain this — with philanthropy once centred on unpaid, voluntary efforts by the wealthy to assist the poor — today’s nonprofit organisations bear little resemblance to that model.
Modern nonprofit work is not charity in the old sense. Nonprofits now deliver essential, frontline community services that increasingly require qualified professionals with advanced education or specialised expertise, including social workers, psychologists, youth development specialists, and educators. At the same time, nonprofit leaders need to bring strong business and management skills to oversee facilities, large teams, complex programmes, and budgets.
However, the perception remains that nonprofit work is somehow “not real work,” or merely a flexible, part-time option – a passion project. This perception can make the sector appear attractive to working parents or other primary caregivers, many of whom are women. The reality is very different. Nonprofit leadership can be demanding, full-time high-stakes work, often carried out under intense financial pressure and emotionally difficult contexts. Globally, human services professionals experience some of the highest rates of burnout because of the emotionally demanding nature of work.
“Nonprofit leaders are expected to manage the business side of organisations, support staff, demonstrate social impact, govern effectively with volunteer boards, and secure sustainable funding — all at once . NAB’s leadership development programmes consistently reveal the same pattern: deeply committed, capable women reporting high levels of stress while striving to sustain essential community services.
At the same time, the gender composition of the sector shapes how services are delivered. Data from the Centennial Bermuda Foundation shows that nearly 60 per cent of nonprofit service users are male, and yet only about 30 per cent of the nonprofit workforce serving them is male. While we celebrate women’s important role in the nonprofit sector, greater gender diversity is also important to the sector’s ability to reflect and respond to the full community it serves.
On International Women’s Day, the prevalence of women in Bermuda’s nonprofit sector should be recognised as both progress and pressure. It demonstrates that women can and do lead. However, true equity requires greater gender diversity in the field. If future generations — women and men alike — are to step into this work as an intentional career choice, nonprofit leadership must be viable, respected, and properly supported. This means valuing nonprofit leadership appropriately, investing in sustainable organisations, and ensuring that leading our community is not an act of personal sacrifice.
That would be a meaningful way to honour women this International Women’s Day.
- Nicola Paugh, PhD, Executive Director – Nonprofit Alliance of Bermuda
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