Leadership & Community Power

Our vision is a state where all women, girls, and gender-expansive people are valued as solution-builders and leaders within their communities.

We build community power by investing in leadership, field-building, and movements that center women, girls, and gender-expansive people at the intersection of identities most impacted by systemic injustice.

About This Impact Area

Community power is the fuel our state needs to change systems and achieve equitable and just
outcomes for all communities. We invest in breaking barriers and building power so women and girls see pathways to leadership in every sector.

By supporting the capacity-building and sustainability of organizations led by Black, Indigenous, and women of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women in Greater Minnesota, we build power within and across our state’s communities.

What the Data Shows

Research shows that gender, racial, and other types of diversity in leadership bring clear benefits, from economic innovation to deeper community support for democratic institutions. Women make up just 3 in 10 leaders statewide.

Women in Corporate Leadership

In Minnesota’s C-suite (chief executives, chief officers, and presidents) women’s leadership has been nearly flat since 2022.

In 2024, women held 30% of corporate board of director seats in these top companies, which has trended up from 15% since 2014. At the current rate, it would take 53 years to reach gender parity. Black, Indigenous, and women of color held only 8.5% of these director seats in 2024, up from 4% in 2020.

Percentage of women in leadership roles in the top Minnesota corporations:

Although women’s representation among Minnesota’s corporate executives has risen in recent years (to 24% in 2024), at the current rate it would take 53 years to reach gender parity.

Figure by CWGPP based on data from annual Minnesota Census of Women in Corporate Leadership, 2024.

The Gender Gap within Political Leadership

The proportion of women in the Minnesota Legislature was 37% in 2025, down from the historic high of 39% in 2023. In 2025, the Minnesota Legislature swore in its most racially diverse group of lawmakers yet. Legislators of color and Indigenous legislators increased to 34 (19 women, 1 nonbinary) in the 2025-2026 session, up from 25 (13 women) in 2021. Among women of different races and ethnicities, only Latinas are not represented in the Minnesota Legislature proportionally to their population in the state.

Women of Color and Native American Women in the Minnesota Legislature

Among women of different races and ethnicities, only Latinas are not represented in the Minnesota Legislature proportionally to their population in the state.

CWGPP analysis of data from the Minnesota Legislature Reference Library and the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates. Bar heights represent the percentage of women of that race/ ethnicity in the Minnesota Legislature in the session indicated. The numbers inside the bars indicate the counts of women of the indicated ethnicity or race.

Women in Nonprofit Leadership

Although women comprise 74% of Minnesota nonprofit sector employees, their leadership roles do not reach gender parity with men.

From 2018-2022, 40% of Minnesota nonprofit leaders were women, up slightly from 34% from 2015-2019. Nonprofit leaders of color make up only 22% of leadership positions, up significantly from 2012-2016 when only 1% of nonprofit leaders were people of color.

Source: “Who Leads Minnesota?” Minnesota Compass, 2025.

“We have an amazing opportunity for transformation. We have an amazing opportunity to build life-affirming institutions instead of what we currently have.”
Kandace Montgomery
Black Visions Collective, Genius of Black Women Presentation

How We Build Power

In addition to investing in programs, we use research and communications to educate and mobilize Minnesotans to recognize bias and injustice, build power, expand opportunities, and create equity.

Workplaces can create inclusive policies to ensure that women at the intersection of identities, including Black, Indigenous, women of color, women with disabilities, older women, and LGBTQ+ women are making key decisions. In addition to business, nonprofits, and elected office, leadership takes place in local communities where women innovators, entrepreneurs, and culture-bearers are creating solutions. Making space and investing in women, girls, and gender-expansive people will ensure that solutions created by people and families most impacted will be successful.

Young Women Are Leaders

Raie Gessesse, former Young Women’s Cabinet member and WFM Policy Fellow, shares
why she is part of the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota and why supporting other young women of color as leaders is critical for our state’s success.

“In order to start uplifting our young women and teaching them that they are capable, attitudes and behaviors ingrained into our society need to change.” 
Raie Gessesse
Young Women’s Cabinet Alumna, Former Policy Fellow