Women of Color Leadership & the Failure of Movements
A P10 Interview and Conversation with Vanessa Priya Daniel, author of Unrig the Game
One of my most favorite things to do is talk to brilliant thinkers and leaders about their work and big ideas. A few weeks ago, I sat down with Vanessa Priya Daniel to discuss her new book, Unrig the Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone About Winning (Random House). In Unrig, she positions women of color and their leadership as central to feminist and social change movements in the U.S.
A New Wave of CEOs: Women of Color Leaders in Movements for Social Change
As women of color have ascended the ranks in organizations and movements, Daniel says they encounter treacherous conditions that prevent them from realizing their full potential and achieving the change they set out to create. This is not a new issue. The treatment of women of color, particularly Black women, in movements for social change is well documented.
What is fresh and compelling about Unrig the Game, though, is its ability to articulate what’s at stake when we malign, sideline, or discard some of our best and brightest leaders: we do not win. Additionally, we experience a unique kind of brain drain and loss of talent that is preventable and hampers our work.
I’ve had my own leadership row—heading a prominent inside-the-beltway think tank. Until now, I have never spoken about it publicly. My conversation with Vanessa, the insights from “Unrig the Game,” and the cumulative experiences of over 40 intergenerational leaders in the book have given me the courage to break the silence that envelopes so many leaders.
My interview with Vanessa covers a lot of ground—from her upbringing—leaving Sri Lanka around the age of 4 because of gender-based violence to her groundbreaking work at Groundswell, where she helped move more than $100 million to reproductive justice organizations to how toxic belonging and performative wokeness impede our progress.
Blown Away but not surprised
The weekend before my interview with Vanessa, I spent the entire time curled up with “Unrig the Game.” I was blown away but not at all surprised by its insights into the experiences of women of color in the social sector. It felt like a revelation and a call to action. Below is the abbreviated interview.
You can click here to listen to the complete interview between Vanessa and me and here to listen to a reflection on my most recent leadership experience in the sector. [i]
Complete Audio Interview: Vanessa Priya Daniel & C. Nicole Mason
C. Nicole Mason, PhD (CNM): I'm so excited to explore Unrig the Game and learn how you thought about it as you pulled it together. But before I do that, I want to step back and start with your origin story. It's always interesting to think about when grounding a conversation like this one. In Unrig, you mention your upbringing and your mother's bravery in raising you alone after leaving your Sri Lankan family because of gender-based violence at the hands of a family member and how those early experiences shaped your work. Can you share a bit more about how your upbringing has informed and continues to inform your work?
Vanessa Priya Daniel (VPD): My life’s work focuses on organizing at the intersection of racial and gender justice. As a queer kid, half Sri Lankan and half white, I grew up in Seattle during the eighties and nineties in a loving Sri Lankan family. That world shattered due to gender-based violence from a relative, with my white mother being the only one to protect me. She took me away, leading to little contact with my family. We moved to a predominantly white area, which was a culture shock, and I faced significant racism.
My mother was protective and a feminist, yet ill-equipped to handle race issues. I navigated racism alone, alongside my black friends and their mothers. The feminist authors I read validated my experiences and taught me how to survive as a girl of color. I felt overwhelmed by racism, but black women supported and politicized me. They introduced me to social justice work, for which I am deeply grateful.
I learned valuable lessons from many in my life: my mother emphasized bold truth-telling, Black women highlighted the importance of solidarity and the need to fight for power, and queer people of color demonstrated that moral clarity often comes from the marginalized. Reconnecting with supportive cousins from Sri Lanka also opened my eyes to the immigrant experience.
CNM: Thank you so much for that beautiful grounding. I wanted to talk about Groundswell because you were there for 17 years. Can you talk about why you founded Groundswell and the philanthropic intervention you hoped to make?
VPD: I sincerely believe in the praxis of so many women of color leaders to create a world in which we can all be free. I spent the first 10 years of my work as a campus, then community, then labor organizer, and then went into philanthropy. In 2005, I had this notion that the sector at the time gave 3% of funding to grassroots organizing and 0.6% to women of color. Philanthropy was siloed by issue area and treated reproductive rights like an electric third rail that no one wanted to touch.
So, I decided to raise money for women of color-led multi-issue organizing for reproductive justice. That's where the work started, and we did it. I'm most proud that the giving vehicle for this was structured with super majorities of women of color who came out of grassroots organizing at every level as staff and on the Board of Directors. And so that's who was making the decisions. Being able to move a hundred million during my time there and seeing all the victories scored at the grassroots has been inspiring.
CNM: Groundswell and your work there expanded and transformed the field. It opened up the aperture for conversations about the flow of resources and who was being centered in the work. It continues to be transformative and critical to women of color-led organizations. Now, I want to turn to Unrig the Game. Why did you want to write it? What story were you looking to tell, and whose voices were you looking to center?
VPD: I wrote the book because I want to win. I'm an organizer. I want my two daughters to have things like self-determination over their bodies, as well as a democracy and a planet to live on. I understand that no team serious about winning benches its MVPs or its most valuable players- for no good reason, especially in the critical moments of a big game. We are currently engaged in the fight of our lives. We need our full strength as a movement; our strength comes from our best and brightest leaders. Many of those leaders are women of color. We know that women of color, particularly black women, have consistently led our movements and served as the backbone.
Yet, there has never been a conversation about how much more we could win if we acknowledged the strategic brilliance that women of color bring and if we stopped making leadership positions so treacherous for them. I wanted to write this book to crack open the conversation. And when I sat down to write it, I knew I didn't have all the answers. When I sat down to write it, I knew I didn't have all the answers. However, I had solid relationships with incredible leaders across movements whom I knew would have many of the answers and who I knew also trusted me enough to be honest about their experiences.
CNM: One aspect I appreciated about the book is the multitude of shared experiences. More than 40 intergenerational women of color leaders contribute their insights to inform your analysis. It was great seeing you connect the dots in such a distinct and clear-sighted way. You've already touched on it, but could you elaborate on the title and what you mean by " Unrig the Game"?
VPD: There are multiple systems women of color know something about unrigging. There are three in particular that I delve into in the book--unrigging of the oppressive systems that are impacting all of us in this society: patriarchy, runaway capitalism, white supremacy, and colonialism. So, there is an understanding that women of color have about how to unrig those. Then, down a level, the dysfunction in our movements that are keeping us from getting all of those oppressive systems off of our necks.
There is an analysis on how we can make our movements healthier, more functional, and more impactful. Additionally, unrigging leadership positions for women of color. This book offers many valuable insights from women of color on all these topics.
In the book, I discuss the unspoken job description for women of color, highlighting the subtext of what is expected of them in leadership roles. The top five expectations I encountered during the interviews were: women of color being invited onto a glass cliff to lead an organization in crisis; the assumption of incompetence; the demand to mother and mammy; zero tolerance for mistakes, whether real or perceived; and experiencing abandonment when under attack.
“I deeply believe in the praxis of so many women of color leaders to create a world in which we can all be free." --Vanessa Priya Daniel
CNM: Thank you for laying that out. Much of it resonated with me. I've been doing this work since I was 19, starting on my college campus at Howard University in Washington, DC, and then climbing to the rank of President and CEO of a prominent think tank. I’ve also held various other senior and leadership roles in organizations. I can relate to the feelings expressed by women of color leaders, including the lack of protection and support.
There's a comment in the book where you mention feeling like a rock star in the world and like you're doing really fantastic work. Then you return to your office, which, for me, felt like a second home because I spent so much time there- sometimes 10 hours a day, and it felt different. It was unsupportive and dysfunctional, and I felt pulled in many directions. There also wasn't much breathing room or space for error.
Over the past two years, conversations about women of color in leadership have primarily occurred behind closed doors, through texts and phone calls. Many leaders fear voicing their concerns may label them as complainers or alienate funders and peers. You have effectively connected these discussions, ensuring that women of color in the sector feel supported rather than isolated.
"Leadership feels like flying a plane being shot out from the outside and the inside at the same time."--Unrig the Game Interviewee
VPD: The silence surrounding this issue is profoundly significant. When I discuss this subject, I notice every head nodding and every woman of color in the audience responding in agreement. Yet, if we reflect on it, when has this conversation ever taken place in the public square? This discussion rarely occurs in the public sphere of our movements. I believe we cannot truly address the existing silence [around women of color’s leadership in movements for social change] without discussing rape culture because it mirrors the silence that exists when a woman speaks out about rape; she'll often be cast as a slut who asks for it.
A woman of color who speaks out about being battered in leadership will often be cast as an incompetent person who had it coming because she couldn't hack the job. Were you just out of your depth at the helm of an organization? Was the pressure of leadership too much for you?
Now obviously, there's a big difference between rape and an attack on a leader, but I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the violence of what comes at leaders can change people's lives. And some of these attacks are strong enough to demolish people's professional reputations. Like survivors of sexual assault or abuse, leaders are disbelieved or forced to prove they were harmed.
CNM: Thank you for sharing this critical analogy. Now, I’d like to discuss deeper themes in Unrig the Game. The book goes beyond telling stories; it connects the collective experiences of women of color leaders, offering tools and frameworks for understanding. You also explore belonging and its link to winning, which I find intriguing. Can you discuss the difference between healthy and toxic belonging and their significance in winning? How does toxic belonging hinder our movement and goals?
VPD: Toxic belonging occurs when conditions for inclusion are inadequate or excessive. For instance, tolerating sexist or racist behavior fosters toxicity, but publicly shaming well-meaning elders for not using current language can also create toxic belonging. Our generation, Nicole, has shifted from one extreme to another regarding societal expectations. A high bar fosters fear and silence instead of grace and learning.
CNM: This is so good. Can you also break down performative wokeness?
VPD: Wokeness is a good thing. It means that you're awake rather than asleep to injustice. However, performative wokeness serves a different purpose: it seeks to shame and humiliate others for their perceived ignorance or mistakes, all to enhance one's own visibility, status, or credibility.
CNM: Before we end, I want to talk about two things: the rigor you say we’ve lost in social change movements and the challenges of working across generations. Lately, we’ve been getting caught in side quests, as my kids say, or things that are not the movement but that take up a lot of power, energy, and space in the work. How can we reorientate ourselves back to the rigor, back to rolling up our sleeves, and the actual work of social change, especially now when it feels most urgent?
VPD: Yeah. On the generational piece, first of all, I have two daughters. This book is a gift to young women of color leaders. We desire less treacherous leadership for them, hoping they experience less harm or trauma because of our experiences and lessons. Each generation benefits from the previous one; young people are breaking the gender binary and the culture of martyrdom and overwork. We should appreciate these changes while acknowledging that younger generations need the guidance of their elders.
My movement elders raised me. They encouraged me and made room for the new ideas I brought while checking me when I was out of line. They challenged me with firmness and love. Love isn't merely compliments and gold stars for participation; it's about preparing you to succeed in the mission of the work. We've abdicated that responsibility in many corners of the movement because, in some cases, we have come to fear young people- their rage, their impulse to burn it all down, and how they might turn on us. However, we cannot let fear guide us.
Recently, someone said to me, “I have to stop and think for a minute about whether it's worth destroying my entire career to hold a 24-year-old accountable because they could ruin me on social media. On social media, people appear a thousand feet tall, broadcasting opinions across the planet. However, I believe some things need to be challenged, such as the impulse to burn everything down without building anything in its place. This individualism and selfie culture, the lack of accountability to the community can lead to a loss of perspective on what’s at stake, and an excessive focus on internal beefs, as if that is the moral of the story. It isn't. We see all of this that young folks are up against, and it's creating a climate of fear, but we have to figure out how to move through that fear with courage.
CNM: Right. Moving through fear with courage is essential. This idea of losing our way or losing the plot is also important. Internal beefs, and competing with other leaders or organizations for resources and attention are not the plot. Writing a beautiful consensus document is not the plot; it is not the thing. The work is the work. The work and how we do it is the thing, but the work is the hardest part. The work of standing up to fascism, to white supremacy, to all of these things, that's the hardest part. This moment calls on all of us to be brave and turn our focus to the right thing, to focus there and together.
CNM: Vanessa, this has been a great conversation. I feel energized and seen. I always like to end positively—What are you most hopeful about? What do you want people to do with Unrig the Game? How do you want people to engage with it?
VPD: Unrig the Game is an organizing tool, and here's my organizing ask—two things: First, I want people to see, notice, and value the superpowers so many women of color leaders bring to the table. Second, I want people to support leaders and intervene and block when things get tough. The book has ways to do that both systemically and in organizations.
CNM: Thank you so much, Vanessa. We covered so much ground and didn’t come close to all you covered in the book. I could talk about this stuff for hours on end. Unrig The Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone about Winning, and we need to win right now. It is both a revelation and a song.
**This interview is condensed and edited. Click here for the complete audio interview to catch everything in between, including the lilt in our voices.
[i] ** The audio for my leadership reflection was recorded at the 2025 Skoll Forum in Oxford, UK, in the Snug room. Pardon the slight background noise, if any.
“Toxic belonging” refers to a sense of belonging that is achieved or maintained through harmful or manipulative behaviors, leading to negative consequences for individuals or the group rather than fostering genuine connection and well-being.