After following her husband to Louisville, Ky., when he had a job opportunity with Ford Motor Company, Donna Murray-Brown had no real plans to return to Michigan.
Even when her husband retired, they had settled into their lives and didn’t figure to come back.
“I had no plans on coming back … We probably imagined ourselves moving further south just for warmer weather as part of retirement,” Murray-Brown said. “So, it wasn’t necessarily in our mindset to go back to Michigan because we were kind of looking ahead to 10 years or so and we think we might want to retire.”
Then she got word of the opening at Inforum Michigan, where longtime president Terry Barclay was retiring, and things changed. Murray-Brown, who had been president of the Michigan Nonprofit Association, was, of course, familiar with Inforum Michigan, a network of women leaders and allies that offers events, programs and research to advance careers and diversity.
She’d been doing some consulting work in the nonprofit space and wasn’t sure it was for her, necessarily. But a board member had reached out, and Murray-Brown agreed to have the conversation.
“The position just kept coming back to me, so I would remain open and decided that I would take a conversation,” Murray-Brown said. “And that one conversation changed my whole view on everything. It was a really dynamic conversation around women and leadership. And it really spoke to the possibilities for me around supporting leaders on a bigger platform.”
The conversations continued to the point where it became clear Murray-Brown was the correct choice. She started the new job in January.
Murray-Brown sat down with Corp! Magazine and talked about her new job, the challenges that come with it and a variety of other topics.
Corp!: At first you weren’t sure the job was for you. What shifted your perspective from “not for me” to “let’s talk”?
Murray-Brown: The first conversation with a board member was “really dynamic” and centered on women and leadership. The board member’s commitment to Inforum was “palpable,” and the discussion opened up bigger possibilities for supporting leaders on a larger platform.
Corp!: What have you learned in the first six months?
Murray-Brown: So, there’s a lot of things I’ve learned. There are a lot of leaders, both men and women, who value the leadership that women bring to the table. And that was remarkable. I spoke to nearly 300 or so stakeholders to ask them about their perspective, whether it was internal stakeholders, staff, board, partners, all of that just kept going out of the ring. And it’s amazing how many people care about leadership.
Corp!: Inforum’s whole thing is to champion and advance women in leadership positions. Why do you care about that?
Murray-Brown: I care about that for several reasons. One personally, in my own career, from banking into the nonprofit sector, each step of the way in my advancement, there was somebody that was there that was a mentor, or in a lot of cases, there were sponsors, and these sponsors were men who said, “Here’s who Donna Marie Brown is. I’m not in the room, but they’re talking about me. “ And that helped to advance my career. They did that because they believed in me and they believed in my leadership.
Now, being a part of a platform that allows for thousands of women to have that opportunity, who deserve that opportunity, by the way, that is something that draws me to this organization and inspires me.
Corp!: Where do you see Inforum going?
Murray-Brown: At Inforum, I am coming into an organization who has lots of great assets and infrastructure to do great things. So I don’t feel like I’m starting from scratch at all. I do think that there are a lot of opportunities that I can leverage. And so where I see it going is that with all of its remarkable 64-year history, we can honestly position ourselves as an essential part of the infrastructure for women’s leadership in Michigan.
I think that is where we need to be. So that is at the tables that are making decisions around the economy and where Michigan Women’s Leadership fits into that. So, I’m having conversations and speaking with others that are doing the work like the Michigan Women’s Commission. Those are partnerships now that I think that I want to dig deeper into to be able to advance the needs for women.
Corp!: What is it that is the success of Inforum. What’s the key?
Murray-Brown: I gave you two pieces of my framework that were essential. I didn’t give you the third one and the fourth, and it’s kind of embedded in that. So, the third one is Elevate. And so, I think the success of Inforum has been the knowledge that it disseminates like that report you just talked about. We have to elevate our voice.
What makes us successful is influencing behavior by putting the information out there but also saying what you can do about it. So that’s a key to our success that we have 75 corporations, corporate partners who are saying, “We believe in what you’re doing.” And they also are not, by the way, their footprint’s not just in Michigan. Our success is the connection and relationship we built with these that there’s not just in Michigan, but goes out.
Corp!: Talk a little bit about your career path.
Murray-Brown: So, my path was a zigzag path, partly because I’m first-generation college graduate, so there wasn’t this playbook for me personally. And so, it was zigzag because it was influenced by people who saw something in me and then brought me into the fold, and then I learned skills along the way.
In 2009, that’s when I started my career in the nonprofit
sector.
Corp!: And any regrets?
Murray-Brown: None. Zero. I wish I understood the nonprofit sector a bit more. That just wasn’t in my psyche about that being an opportunity and career. But what I love about Inforum is it’s marrying up that financial corporate life I had before and my nonprofit expertise. This is a perfect fit. I never would’ve even thought of it that way, but it really is.
Corp!: What’s the big challenge for nonprofits these days?
Murray-Brown: It kind of really depends on the nonprofit itself. There are lots of, generally speaking for nonprofits, funding. Obviously, funding was a big hit when there was a change in administration around just federal funding that nonprofits received to be able to do their work. So, depending on the type of work that they were doing, if it was not aligned with the federal funding, they hurt quite a bit. And then you’ve got organizations like ours that are identity-based based on women. And so there are maybe some challenges. We have not experienced those challenges, but I know some of my other colleagues have.
Corp!: What’s your biggest takeaway from the 2026 Inforum report?
Murray-Brown: So, my biggest takeaway is that the progress is still incremental. I mean, I personally am staying up at nights because of the report, because I would like to know, and I’m thinking through how informed the metrics are tied to that report. Are we doing what we need to do to actually make
that report different?
Corp!: Are there encouraging numbers in the report?
Murray-Brown: Yeah, I think … we’re moving in the right direction. It’ll be interesting to see the next report because some of it is still kind of, in some cases for some corporations, this knee-jerk reaction to 2020 and their perspectives around commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and seeing women as a way to make a statement. But what I’m hoping, because we’re seeing more women in the hop role, which is fantastic, we’re seeing more women on board, those are great things, but we don’t want to slip in any way. And we can’t wait for two years to figure out if we’re slipping. We have to assume that we have to hold on and get better.
