| Women and communities of color increasingly rely on social services provided by small, community-based nonprofits. This study sought to understand how shared racial and gender identity impacted leader/client relations, active involvement, and program completion. It focused on the lack of in-depth knowledge on intersectional relationships between African-American women, clients, and organizational leaders within community based nonprofits. Examining how nonprofit clients identify with leaders may yield useful knowledge in making policy decisions and addressing issues with program completion and community outreach. Through focus groups, observation of a community-based nonprofit's leaders and clients, and interviews of key informants, this instrumental case study drew on the theoretical implications of the intercategorical approach of intersectionality to scrutinize internal relations within nonprofit programming. Following the organizing and coding of the data, categories and themes were generated using NVivo 8.0 software. Themes that emanated from this thematic analysis were: identity-awareness, role expectations, characterization of problems, organizational goal-setting, cultural competence, racial bias, social connectedness, and social isolation. These themes addressed the primary research question as the findings indicated that awareness of the implications of multiple oppressive experiences provided depth to relational bonds, initially only established through racial and gender identification. Findings suggested that social change through community-based nonprofits can occur with leaders becoming knowledgeable of the dynamics of intersecting oppressive identities which may help increase program services designed to improve the lives of women and people of color who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods. |
