Boards of nonprofits have 27% more women than the national average!

According to a recent survey carried out by Catalyst, an international nonprofit dedicated to progressing more inclusive workplaces, just 10% of Irish company directors are women*.  When compared to other European states, this figure is at the lower end of the scale – only Portugal has a lower percentage, at 7.9%.  Women hold 22.8% of Board positions in the UK and 29.7% in France.

We wondered - how do the boards of Irish nonprofits compare with this?

We analysed the numbers in the Benefacts Database of Irish Nonprofits, drilling down even further to uncover the gender mix not only for the sector as a whole but also for the various categories of organisations working within the sector.

Women form an average of 37% of the members of the boards of all nonprofits in Ireland - 27% above the national average**.

This average total figure varies quite significantly from sub-sector to sub-sector as you can see in the chart below.

On the boards of Social Services nonprofits, the number of woman directors - at 56% - is almost 6 times the national average for all boards.  This category includes nonprofit organisations providing emergency relief, childcare, services to support families, young people, older people, the Travelling community, homeless people and people with disabilities.

Likewise the proportion of women serving on the boards of advocacy and human rights organisations is higher than the norm, at 44%. At the other end of the scale, the representation of women on the board of recreation or sports nonprofits at 18% is closer to the national average, but 19% lower than the sectoral norm.

Later this year Benefacts will be releasing a major report providing insights into the nonprofit sector in Ireland.  For now, you can explore further governance information on this sector at benefacts.ie/explore

*http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2014-catalyst-census-women-board-directors
** Benefacts derived its analysis of gender balance among the 55, 519 people who serve on the boards of Irish non-profit companies from public data filed by them with the Companies Registration Office, using a name-recognition algorithm derived from data published by the Central Statistics Office.