Just months before Happy Fernandez died in 2013, she had pulled together a group of prominent women in the nonprofit world (and a journalist, me) to figure out her next great thing. Happy, a former Philadelphia city councilperson, had just retired from her position as president of the Moore College of Art and wanted to put her energy and skills into advancing women in non-profits.
Her sudden death might have ended her quest. But the women she had assembled felt they should continue what she had started.
A major moment in that effort was announced today, with the first in-depth analysis of the boards of the Philadelphia area's 25 largest hospitals and 25 largest universities -- "meds and eds" as these influential institutions are called.
Among the findings: that the boards of only 4 of the 25 colleges have 50 percent or more women members. Not surprisingly, those are schools with historically female roots, such as Bryn Mawr College. The same was true of hospitals, with those founded by Catholic sisters giving more equitable representation to women.
The study was conducted by the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University's School of Business at the request of our group, which for six years has quietly been working behind the scenes to coax and cajole area universities and hospitals to put more women on their boards. We have now given ourselves a name– the Women's Nonprofit Leadership Initiative. And a website www.wnli.org, where you can learn about the members and find research proving the benefits of board diversity.
Reams of research should put to rest any disputing the value of diversified boards, from guiding institutions to better decision making to recognizing and preventing fraud. What's still too often missing today is the will to make it happen.
The full report shows that many of the region's largest and most important institutions could do much better.
Here are a couple charts from the report -- read the full report here.
And see a story by the Philadelphia Inquirer here.
Her sudden death might have ended her quest. But the women she had assembled felt they should continue what she had started.
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| Happy Fernandez, Philadelphia Inquirer |
Among the findings: that the boards of only 4 of the 25 colleges have 50 percent or more women members. Not surprisingly, those are schools with historically female roots, such as Bryn Mawr College. The same was true of hospitals, with those founded by Catholic sisters giving more equitable representation to women.
The study was conducted by the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University's School of Business at the request of our group, which for six years has quietly been working behind the scenes to coax and cajole area universities and hospitals to put more women on their boards. We have now given ourselves a name– the Women's Nonprofit Leadership Initiative. And a website www.wnli.org, where you can learn about the members and find research proving the benefits of board diversity.
Reams of research should put to rest any disputing the value of diversified boards, from guiding institutions to better decision making to recognizing and preventing fraud. What's still too often missing today is the will to make it happen.
The full report shows that many of the region's largest and most important institutions could do much better.
Here are a couple charts from the report -- read the full report here.
And see a story by the Philadelphia Inquirer here.
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