Tracy Sturdivant, the Ms. Foundation's next leader, wants to expand the feminist funder's coalition

NEW YORK (AP) — It is rare, the Ms. Foundation's next leader acknowledged, for a Black woman to take the helm of a major nonprofit from another Black woman. It is even rarer, she noted, for that organization to be financially healthy.

And yet that is the position Tracy Sturdivant will enter when she succeeds Teresa Younger as the president and CEO of the first national philanthropy run by and for women. The Ms. Foundation introduced Sturdivant on Tuesday at its annual New York City gala, where feminists such as #MeToo founder Tarana Burke were honored.

The foundation is “not in crisis,” but “ready for what’s to come” with Sturdivant in charge, Younger said in a statement shared ahead of the announcement. The foundation built a $100 million-plus endowment and explicitly centered women and girls of color during her tenure.

With that strong footing Sturdivant sees an opportunity to expand the coalition of people who see gender justice as their charge, too. As many funders disinvest from Black-led nonprofits, she is committed to “unapologetically” supporting marginalized groups while simultaneously inviting others to join the fight for economic equality and bodily autonomy.

“We need all hands on deck to make sure that we're supporting women in the midst of what I call this perfect form of instability that they're experiencing,” Sturdivant told The Associated Press in an interview.

The Detroit native comes to the foundation from The League, the nonprofit she founded to inspire civic engagement through culture. She credits past Ms. Foundation president Marie Wilson — who helped start “Take Our Daughters to Work” day to boost adolescent girls' self esteem — with showing her the power of large-scale narrative change campaigns. They worked together on the White House Project, a nonprofit that aimed to advance women's leadership across all sectors.

Narrative change has become a more necessary part of the foundation's work, she said, as conservative movements nationwide seek to prohibit funding for diversity, equity and inclusion. Sturdivant sees the Ms. Foundation, a legacy institution that she said has weathered “many cultural shifts” since its 1973 founding, as poised to engage this next generation of feminists through more modern storytelling.

She pointed to Blair Imani, a historian and creator honored at Tuesday's gala, as an example of the new voices she wants to elevate. Imani's viral web series “Smarter in Seconds” offers a progressive education on issues of race and gender in short-form videos.

“They are leading the culture and being able to take some of our cues from them, I think, is gonna be really helpful," Sturdivant said.

She's also considering ways to increase grantmaking around equal pay, family leave and childcare — issues she championed as the co-founder of the Make it Work Campaign, a three-year initiative to improve women's economic lives in the United States.

Men’s earnings are rising faster than women’s, and the gender wage gap has widened for two years in a row, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A recent AP-NORC poll found that most working women in the U.S. believe they are disadvantaged when it comes to earning competitive wages — though the country is deeply divided over how to confront those disparities, with many men holding a different view.

“We're really talking about what does it mean for folks to be able to lead a life where they are not just surviving but thriving, they feel safe and they're secure," Sturdivant said. “That's going to be the work of the foundation under my tenure.”

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