By Esther Saehyun Lee, Community-Centric Fundraising Global Council Member, Self-Proclaimed Imposter, and Consultant

Why did hearing someone say, “You were right; you are an imposter,” invoke calm instead of panic? I’d always thought that it would unmask me as the fraud I always feared I was.

The title of this essay comes from a TikTok by Shahem Mclaurin. Their reclaiming of “imposter syndrome” was revelatory and inspired me to share their perspective with you.

(I’m not going to talk about imposter syndrome or its effects because, chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably felt this deeply. You don’t need me to detail the symptoms; chances are you’re feeling it right now just from reading the first half of this title.)

For me, hearing this therapist say the words, “You are not feeling imposter syndrome, you are an imposter,” felt like my worst fears being articulated. I thought it would confirm my worst fears and the tape running in my head continually telling me, “I do not belong.”

I thought that my anxiety, the sense of feeling always a little bit othered, of being excluded, of always feeling that I don’t quite belong, would start ringing louder. But instead, I felt calm. 

In fact, I felt liberated.

Then I felt curious.

Why did hearing someone say, “You were right; you are an imposter,” invoke calm instead of panic? I’d always thought that it would unmask me as the fraud I always feared I was. 

This line of thinking led me to reflect on one of the times in my career when my imposter syndrome felt the most suffocating.

When Imposter Syndrome Strikes in Activist Spaces

You would assume it would come from a more corporate setting, but it actually came about when I joined an organization that was unapologetically feminist. My role, filled with promises of anti-racist and intersectional feminist values, ironically made me question if I was enough: equitable enough, feminist enough, committed enough. Having come from academia, where my imposter syndrome was always about whether I was smart enough, this was new. My imposter syndrome evolved from doubting my intelligence to doubting myself as an activist.

In my role, I encountered amazing feminists and team members committed to fighting violence against women. However, I also met many –usually older unionized staff – whose feminism was only really applicable to white women. Who really made it clear that they didn’t care or want to shift their perspective.

Their racism and their condescension to people of colour were palpable. They were racist to other staff and didn’t care even to be subtle about it. The very first week of my job, a staff member refused to let me into the shelter.

Our shelter had two locked entrances, which required a fob to enter. Sometimes (well, oftentimes), the fob scanner wasn’t functional, and when this was the case, the staff member sitting at the front desk would buzz you in.

During my first week as a coordinator, my fob wasn’t working, so I stood at the door, smiled, and waved to the staff member – an older, white, unionized staff member who’d worked at the shelter for decades – I’ll call her Marie.

She glanced at me and went back to her work.

I tried to brush it off and just knocked on the door. But she simply kept ignoring me.

Eventually, another staff member who witnessed me knocking at the door and the advocate willfully ignoring my presence let me in. We said nothing to each other.

But as we were both women of colour, she gave me a look of deep understanding. We knew what Marie was doing. We’ve had Maries all throughout our lives.

Just from that glance, I felt affirmed in my suspicion.

Marie had intentionally ignored me and prevented me from entering the workspace.

The experience of enduring racist harm and abuse in this sector is not new to me. Witnessing it happen to others is not new to me. And I, unfortunately, as many people of colour do, have a catalogue of experiences of being othered, fetishized, excluded, or condescended to. As an Asian woman, I’m used to being stereotyped as subservient or “a good worker” but never a leader. Someone who’s a hard worker and easy to manage because I hold no strong thoughts of my own.

But I chose this example for a reason.

Physically being excluded from the workspace, actively ignored, and made invisible was a tangible confirmation of what my imposter syndrome had been telling me –that I did not belong. And having this experience in an organization that loudly proclaimed its commitment to advocacy and equity demonstrated an irony prevalent in the nonprofit sector.

“For women of color, self-doubt and the feeling that we don’t belong in corporate workplaces can be even more pronounced — not because women of color (a broad, imprecise categorization) have an innate deficiency but because the intersection of our race and gender often places us in a precarious position at work. Many of us across the world are implicitly, if not explicitly, told we don’t belong in white- and male-dominated workplaces.”

         -“Stop telling women they have imposter syndrome”- Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey

It was unexpected to have this experience in the nonprofit sector, in a feminist organization staffed by so many women of colour.

Working for an organization that is vocal about its mission and values is so alluring. And its loudest siren call is that “you can be yourself.” It almost lulls you to think that the risk you carry as a woman of colour is erased. That you are now, and truly, “safe.” Safe to be, safe to speak, safe to unmask.

I learned, my first week on the job, that this is false.

And in some ways, I’m grateful that it happened to me so early. This experience of being shut out, erased, and made invisible is such a small drop in the ocean of women of colour’s experiences in the nonprofit sector.

The call for equity-minded fundraisers has become a rote performance, rather than a true commitment to justice

In recent years, the nonprofit sector has been tasked with critical self-reflection to examine how it perpetuates the harms it says it tries to solve. And the call to equity has been one that even the most archaic of institutions, the most powerful, the most resourced, cannot ignore. 

McKinsey’s report found that from November 1, 2020, to May 19, 2021, companies across the private and public sectors, including philanthropic institutions, committed nearly $200 billion to increase efforts toward racial justice.  More and more, we’re hearing a call for justice and a call to shift our organizational and sector culture to reflect the communities we serve. Increasingly, there have also been demands that organizations and our sector itself address the toxicity and racism that is both systemic and rampant.

And there were some hopeful things to come out of this.

But it’s also started to dilute the work of anti-racism and made light of the scope of racial reckoning, justice, and equity work that is going to be a huge undertaking for this sector.

There have been a lot of empty and performative gestures to signal equity, but they have led to nothing. From internal equity audits (with no third party to hold them accountable), the formation of DEI committees (usually with young POC that are not compensated and are instead exploited for their labour), and the procedural land acknowledgment in all-staff meetings (that prompt no self-reflection or call to action but is a mere rote performance of words on a page). Organizations have also begun seeking fundraisers committed to equity but creating a space that is unequivocally unsafe for them.

How do we proceed?

Instead of asking ourselves if we’re imposters, we should ask ourselves, what systems are we imposters of?

I am an imposter. I don’t belong in the nonprofit sector–as it is. I refuse to subscribe to the underpinning values of white saviorism, colonialism, donor worship, poverty tourism, and overall self-congratulatory air that “we came into this sector to do good.”

This perspective has shifted things for me. Watching this Black therapist talk about “belonging” in an academic setting exposed a truth that hit me like a hammer.

I don’t belong. Not to this sector as it is.

And I’m OK with that.

I am an imposter. I don’t belong in the nonprofit sector–as it is.

I refuse to subscribe to the underpinning values of white saviorism, colonialism, donor worship, poverty tourism, and overall self-congratulatory air that “we came into this sector to do good.”

The narrative that we “do good” in this sector is precisely why we do so much harm. This halo effect has blanketed so much interpersonal and systemic harm it’d be impossible to articulate the lengths and traumas that have affected people in this sector.

I’m an imposter. I’d rather focus on the “why” we solicit money than the goal. I’d rather discuss, at length, the cost and labour of a program instead of creating one so we can flaunt it to foundations for money. I’d rather discuss the merits of a 40-page application for a $5k grant, where we must lie to them that this will have a huge impact on our program.

I’d rather partner with organizations that align with our values than pursue one simply because they have money.

And I’m realizing that, in many ways, this does make me an imposter. It makes me an imposter to a disappearing era of fundraising where money was the ultimate end goal.

I’m part of a generation of fundraisers committed to holding this sector accountable to the values it has always professed. I’m part of a generation where one fundraiser who has experienced racist harm is one fundraiser too many. I’m part of a generation of fundraisers where losing money is not my ultimate fear, but losing my values is.

My understanding of imposter syndrome has expanded and contains multitudes now. Instead of asking whether I belong in a space, I ask myself, “Do I want to be here?” 

This reflection is not meant to glamorize imposter syndrome or romanticize it. I couldn’t do that if I tried. Imposter syndrome is debilitating and is the reason this essay took so damn long to write. I’ve simply contextualised my imposter syndrome to systemic issues, not just individual failings. 

This sector wasn’t made for people of colour to feel powerful. It was made to disempower us. And the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can rebuild it. As Shahem Mclaurin says, “Do not gaslight yourself out of this experience cause that’s how we avoid changing these systems and institutions.” I now have clarity of my purpose in this sector.

My purpose is to be an imposter until this sector rebuilds itself into one that truly serves us all.

My name is Esther Saehyun Lee, and I’m an imposter in the nonprofit sector. And I will remain one until our sector is truly grounded in equity and justice.