Walk into most nonprofits across India, and you’ll see women everywhere leading field programs, managing communities, coordinating volunteers, running day-to-day operations. They’re the backbone of the social sector.
But look at the boardroom? Senior leadership tables? The faces change.
Despite women making up the majority of the workforce in social purpose organisations, they remain strikingly underrepresented in decision-making roles. And this Women’s Day, we at India Leaders for Social Sector wanted to understand why.
Our COO, Archana Ramachandran, has written a piece for YourStory that digs into this uncomfortable truth. It’s not about women lacking ambition or capability far from it. It’s about the invisible barriers that hold them back at critical career junctures.
The research is clear: the issue isn’t a “leaky pipeline.” It’s what happens at the mid-career stage. When mentorship disappears. When networks narrow. When access to strategy and decision-making rooms becomes harder to find. When the path forward becomes unclear, even for the most driven professionals.
Archana’s article shares real leadership journeys from institutional roles to grassroots work and challenges how we’ve traditionally defined ambition and success in this sector. Because leadership doesn’t always look the same for everyone, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is when systemic barriers decide who gets to lead.
This isn’t just about fairness. When we don’t have women in leadership, we weaken our organisations. We limit our impact. We miss perspectives that are critical to the communities we serve.
So this Women’s Day, we’re not just celebrating women. We’re asking harder questions. We’re pushing for real change. And we’re inviting everyone leaders, practitioners, funders, ecosystem partners