Our Diversity Matrix
2025 Delegate Profile
AGE
Collectively, Minnesota Leadership Council on Aging Delegates contribute more than 1,764 years of lived experience to our shared table. With a span of four decades between our youngest Delegate (32) and our oldest Delegate (72), we have an average age of 52.
RACIAL IDENTITIES
Roughly one in four Delegates identify as people of color, including Black, African American, Korean American, Asian, and Latino, while others identify as White.
ORIGIN STORIES
Most of us were born or spent our formative years in the United States or U.S. Territories, while some Delegates immigrated to the U.S. as children or adults from countries such as Chile, England and South Korea. Others of us draw on family legacies that include migration, fleeing hardship, enslavement, and displacement.
All Delegates are fluent in English; some speak Spanish and French.
GENDER
We recognize gender as a spectrum and support its expression in many forms. Most Delegates describe their gender using terms like woman, man, with over two-thirds identifying with feminine descriptors.
Some Delegates identify as cisgender, indicating alignment with our sex assigned at birth, and many use pronouns including “she/her,” “he/him,” and “they/them” are commonly used.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Our Delegates represent a range of sexual orientations, including straight/heterosexual as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and pansexual.
OTHER IDENTITIES
More than half of us are parents, spouses, or caregivers. From young children to adult children with special needs to aging parents, we actively support loved ones across generations.
We also value many other roles as friends, siblings, grandparents, neighbors, military veterans, mentors, volunteers, and life-long learners.
Our Delegates are active in various faith communities, and many bring deeply personal experiences that include trauma survival and loss. About 15% of us live with visible and/or invisible physical, cognitive, or emotional disabilities.
EXPERIENCE
We hold a powerful mix of lived experience, professional expertise, and personal passion that drives our shared work.
Our journeys span decades of leadership across community-based organizations in the aging field and beyond. We are advocates, educators, caregivers, artists, clinicians, and nonprofit leaders. Grounded in trauma-informed and equity-centered practices, our areas of expertise include healthcare, social work, public health, education, policy, and strategy.
Most of us hold advanced degrees (MA, JD, PhD, MD) with academic backgrounds in disciplines such as social work, psychology, gerontology, nursing, sociology, finance, political science, medicine and more.
GEOGRAPHY
We bring perspectives shaped by lives including in rural farming towns, suburban neighborhoods, and major cities across the Midwest and the globe. Some of us lived in multiple states or countries before calling this state home; others have been lifelong Minnesotans.
Today, we bring perspectives spanning Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities. We live in a mix of rural towns, exurbs, suburban neighborhoods, and urban centers. Whether shaped by rural beginnings, global migration, or deep roots in the metro, our varied paths provide us with valuable insight into many of Minnesota’s communities that we serve.
SKILLS
You will know us by our curiosity, empathy, creativity, and commitment to equity. We lead with authenticity, humility, and a willingness to challenge assumptions. Our collective strengths include public speaking, coaching, advocacy, fundraising, and systems thinking. We are storytellers, bridge-builders, policy experts, and inclusive problem-solvers who lead with humor and hope.
SOURCE
This profile is based on an 86% response rate to our May 2025 Diversity Matrix Survey. Since 2022, we have conducted this annual, open-ended narrative survey of all Delegates inspired by these insights from Team Dynamics >
