Preparing the Aging Sector for Leaders of Color

Editor’s Note: The John A. Hartford Foundation is collaborating with ASA to advance equity in aging by supporting ASA RISE, a 20-week social justice and leadership program for rising leaders of color in aging, and via the development and dissemination of equity-related, partnership-based thought leadership through ASA’s Generations platform. This blog post is part of that series.

In a rapidly aging and diversifying America, the urgency for equitable leadership in the field of aging has never been greater. Every day, professionals in our field are called upon to shape services, policies and narratives that touch millions of lives. Yet leadership ranks in aging—like many sectors—still don’t reflect the racial and cultural diversity of the communities we serve.

Leaders shaping the future of aging must reflect its full diversity—it’s not just a matter of representation—it’s a matter of justice, relevance and survival. Leadership pipelines in the aging field remain disproportionately white, linear and disconnected from the lived experiences of those most impacted by aging inequities.

At ASA, we believe diversifying leadership isn’t only about fairness or optics—it’s essential to the long-term vitality, innovation and integrity of the field. Through ASA RISE, our flagship leadership development program for emerging leaders of color, we are committed to doing something fundamentally different. We’re not just expanding the pipeline—we’re reimagining the path.

That’s why we are clear about our vision for the future of leadership in aging. It isn’t enough to simply open doors for more Asian, Black, Latino, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander and multiracial professionals. We must also reshape the rooms they’re walking into. In our work with ASA RISE, we often say:

We’re not just preparing leaders of color for the aging sector—we’re preparing the aging sector for leaders of color.

This distinction matters. It represents a necessary shift in how we think about leadership, systems change, and the future of aging.

The Stakes for Equity in Aging

By 2029, for the first time in U.S. history, older adults will outnumber children. At the same time, the older adult population is increasingly racially and ethnically diverse. These demographic shifts collide with longstanding structural inequities in health, housing, caregiving and economic security. Racism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, and xenophobia all shape how people grow older—and how they are treated as they age.

Today’s systems of care—from housing and healthcare to long-term services and supports—are rooted in policies and practices that often fail to account for the racialized, gendered, and classed experiences of aging. Leadership in aging must be equipped to understand and disrupt these realities. Yet the current ecosystem often lacks the cultural humility, community connection, and systemic awareness necessary to drive lasting change. Leadership development programs too often treat equity as an afterthought, not a foundation. And professionals of color are expected to succeed in systems that were not designed with their realities—or their brilliance—in mind.

Professionals of color across the aging field see this every day. They witness elders denied culturally competent care, LGBTQ+ older adults aging in isolation, immigrant communities navigating inaccessible systems, and Black grandmothers in skipped generation households dying too young from preventable conditions. Despite the urgency of these realities, emerging leaders of color are still expected to adapt to leadership norms that were not designed with them in mind.

What the field too often misses is this: leaders of color are not coming to the table empty-handed. They bring with them lived experience, community connection, intergenerational wisdom, and an unflinching commitment to justice. What they need is not assimilation—they need affirmation. Not gatekeeping—they need grounding, growth and opportunity.

ASA RISE: Cultivating Equity-Driven Leadership

ASA RISE was born out of this gap and this opportunity. Launched in 2022, the program was created to prepare the next generation of leaders of color in aging—and to cultivate a national network rooted in equity, collaboration, and justice. But ASA RISE is not a traditional leadership training. It is an intentional intervention.

Each cohort of ASA RISE includes emerging professionals of color from across sectors—public health, policy, direct services, research, government, housing and more. Over the course of six months, they engage in curriculum grounded in intersectionality, equity-centered leadership, mentorship, and narrative change. They develop skills not just to navigate the field, but to influence it. Not just to survive systems, but to reshape them.

What makes ASA RISE different is that it affirms cultural identity as an asset, not a liability. It treats lived experience and community knowledge as leadership capital. It builds capacity, yes—but more importantly, it builds confidence, connection and clarity of purpose.

The result? Leaders who are not only equipped to lead—but ready to transform the systems around them.

Rewriting the Leadership Narrative

Too often, professional development spaces imply that leaders of color must assimilate to dominant norms to succeed. ASA RISE offers a different invitation: bring your full self. Bring your community stories, your intergenerational wisdom, your experiences with injustice—and your visions for what aging should be.

Participants are challenged to examine how systems of power shape aging—and how their own work can disrupt harm and build belonging. They are invited to lead from their values, and to recognize that leadership is not defined by a title, but by action and accountability. They are encouraged to collaborate, to challenge norms, and to create new narratives about what leadership in aging looks like.

And they are supported by a network that sees them not as exceptions, but as the future.

Preparing the Field for the Leaders it Needs

ASA RISE is preparing leaders of color—but equally important, it is helping prepare the aging sector—equipping organizations, funders, and institutions to transform. Because if we continue to recruit professionals of color into environments that are inequitable, extractive, or exclusionary, we are not fostering leadership—we are reinforcing barriers.

Preparing the sector means:

• Rethinking what “professionalism” (and “leadership”) looks like, and who defines it.
• Confronting the racism, ageism and ableism that shape care systems and service delivery.
• Reconsidering hiring, promotion, and retention practices to center equity, not just inclusion.
• Valuing storytelling, cultural humility, emotional intelligence, and systems fluency as core leadership competencies.
• Building accountability for racial equity into strategic plans, funding models and governance—not just diversity statements.

It also means listening to and following the lead of people of color—without co-opting our labor or demanding assimilation. It means creating space for joy, healing, creativity, and belonging. And it means investing in leadership as a practice of liberation, not just a pathway to power.

To be clear, ASA RISE is not remedial. It is not a crash course in professionalism or a stepping stone into white-led spaces. It is a space of possibility—where leaders of color can deepen their skills, amplify their values, and envision a future where equity is not just an add-on, but a starting point.

And yet, this kind of development is not enough. If we focus on preparing professionals of color for leadership without challenging the environments they’re entering, we risk setting them up for burnout, marginalization, or worse—disillusionment. That’s why the other side of our mission is just as important: preparing the aging sector to receive, support, and follow the leadership of people of color and others who have been marginalized as outsiders looking in.

It requires the aging field to do its own work.

A Growing Movement

Since its launch, ASA RISE has supported 76 Fellows across four cohorts. These leaders have gone on to develop innovative models for care, conduct groundbreaking research, lead advocacy campaigns, develop intergenerational programs, and mentor others rising behind them. They are helping reimagine what it means to age with dignity and to lead with equity.

But perhaps more powerfully, they are reminding the field that change is not only possible—it’s happening. They are helping rewrite the story of aging leadership in America. And they are doing so together, in community.

We know that this work does not happen in isolation. ASA RISE is part of a larger movement to transform the field of aging—from one shaped by historical exclusion to one animated by justice, equity and interdependence. We are proud to contribute to that movement and to nurture a community of leaders who will carry it forward.

Many of our participants enter the program with stories that mirror their communities—stories of elders aging without the supports they deserve, of policies that erase cultural identity, of exclusion from tables of power. But they also carry hope, history, and a deep desire to create something better.

As one ASA RISE alum shared:

“I stopped asking, ‘How do I fit in?’ And started asking, ‘What do I want to transform?’ That shift changed everything.”

Another told us:

“I used to think I had to leave parts of myself at the door to be taken seriously. This program reminded me that my cultural identity is not a barrier. It’s a strength.”

It is in these stories that the true power of the ASA RISE program lies. Because when leaders feel seen, supported, and ready—they become accomplices, co-conspirators, disruptors, catalysts and accelerators. They design programs, advocate for equitable policy, mentor others, and build movements.

The Future Is Already Here

As the ASA RISE Village grows, and as new cohorts of fellows complete their journeys, the future we’ve imagined is taking shape. These leaders are not waiting for permission. They are claiming space, naming truths, and offering new models for what leadership in aging can—and must—look like.

To philanthropic partners, government agencies, academic institutions, and aging organizations across the country, we offer this invitation: don’t just look for leaders of color to fill existing gaps. Invest in them. Listen to them. Follow their lead. And be willing to change your systems in the process.

Because the most urgent question facing the future of aging is not whether leaders of color are prepared. It’s is the aging sector is ready for them?

Patrice Dickerson, PhD, is ASA’s Senior Equity Strategy Director.

Photo caption: ASA RISE Cohort 4 Fellows—The Accelerators—at the On Aging Conference in Orlando, Fla., April 2025.

The ASA RISE Cohort 5 application opens Aug. 5.