Welcome to your Fund the People Podcast!! We're excited you're here.
Nonprofit people ARE nonprofit capacity! Nonprofit people ARE nonprofit programs! Nonprofit people ARE nonprofit impact!
The Nonprofit Workforce is a powerful force for good in our democracy, our economy, and our communities. We are 10% of private employment in the U.S. We do what business and government cannot do; we fix what government and business break or cannot fix. We deliver the social safety net to Americans. We bring the First Amendment to life. We build bonds of belonging, learning, culture, faith, trust, and meaning in people's lives. Yet the Nonprofit Workforce is largely invisible and ignored by public policy, philanthropic funding, and the media. As a result, there's a chronic deficit of funding for the needs of nonprofit workers -- needs for decent pay, adequate benefits, helpful professional development, and other support-systems.
To help you strengthen the nonprofit sector in your community, our podcast equips you with the ideas, research, and tools you need to advocate for investment in the nonprofit workforce. This unique show invites you into intimate and provocative conversations with a diverse network of thought-leaders: funders, nonprofit leaders, capacity-builders, researchers, consultants, and government leaders from across the country.
There are many nonprofit-focused podcasts out there that I listen to, love, and learned from. Our Fund the People Podcast is the only one I know of that focuses on investing in the nonprofit workforce.
Investing in the nonprofit workforce may sound like a narrow focus at first. But it's actually quite deep, wide, and complex. Over time, we've covered a complex and interesting set of interconnected issues related to investing in the nonprofit workforce. Topics on the show have included funder attitudes and practices; racial, gender, and class equity in the nonprofit workforce; nonprofit employee burnout; recruitment and retention; worker shortages; ensuring healthy nonprofit executive transitions; organizational culture; pay equity; hiring practices; the lack of available federal data on nonprofit employment; retirement savings; student loan debt among nonprofits; how government contracting relates to nonprofit compensation; and much more. We pack each episode with insights, data points, and resources you can use in your work. And we strive to make them "evergreen", so our back catalogue offers a plethora of episodes that remain highly-relevant over time.
This show is a program of Fund the People, the national organization that drives equity, effectiveness, and endurance in the social sector by advocating for investment in America's nonprofit workforce. Fund the People works toward this goal through our three-part strategy: making the case, equipping for action, and building a movement for talent-investing and #TalentJustice.
I'm your host, Rusty Stahl. I'm proud to serve as Founder, President and CEO of Fund the People. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I'm a nonprofit geek, philanthropy nerd, network-weaver, and serial social entrepreneur. An AmeriCorps member during college, I have been interested in activism, service, nonprofits, and social change since high school. I studied philanthropy in graduate school at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy (now the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy).
Then I moved to New York City in 2000 to work at the Ford Foundation as a Program Associate, where I supported and learned from grantmakers who worked to strengthen philanthropy and civil society in the U.S. While there, I co-founded Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) with a small group of colleagues, and went on to serve as founding Executive Director of the organization for 10 years. At EPIP, I had the privilege to provide professional development to thousands of young changemakers working inside foundations. After an intentional executive transition out of this role in 2012, I did research about the nonprofit workforce as a Visiting Fellow in Residence at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service and concurrently as a Tides Fellow. This research resulted in my 2013 journal article, Talent Philanthropy: Investing in Nonprofit People to Advance Nonprofit Performance. That article laid the groundwork for the establishment of Fund the People (briefly known as Talent Philanthropy Project).
With support from The Kresge Foundation, we formally launched Fund the People in May 2014. Since that time, I've been a full-time advocate for investment in America's nonprofit workforce. It's an honor to earn a living in this role, and it's more than a job - it's a calling and a mission that I love. When the pandemic stopped all my speaking engagements, I started our podcast with consultant Vanessa Viglietta in September 2020 as a way to reach more people with the #FundThePeople message. In 2015, I had moved out of NYC to the Hudson Valley, and we record the show at a recording studio called the Beacon A/V Lab, with sound engineering by Jonny Taylor and remote editing by Carla Paez.
The show was initially structured around themes drawn from our Funding that Works Framework.
- Season One focuses on the Problem Facing the Nonprofit Workforce.
- The theme of Season Two is our Proposal for Transformation.
- Season Three examines our Principles of Talent-Investing, and
- Season Four explores the Practices of Talent-Investing
After that, we continue to come back to themes, reinforce ideas, and discuss inter-connected guests and topics.
I've had fun creating Spotify Playlists of the FTP Podcast, so you can listen to collections of episodes by type of guest, theme, etc. We occasionally offer special multi-episode series, like Smashing the Overhead Myth Once and For All (some of our most-listened-to episodes) and How Funders are Supporting Nonprofit Workers in the Age of Burnout). We also have recurring features, such as Rusty's Rants and Reflections.
So far, it's been an amazing experience, learning to podcast and getting the word out to people far and wide. Along the way I get to spend one-on-one time (even if it is usually via a screen) with an amazing array of colleagues and people who inspire and educate me. Highlights have included the original scholar on workplace burnout, Dr. Christina Maslach; two CEOs of Independent Sector, Akilah Watkins and her predecessor Dan Cardinali, the funniest and sharpest critic of philanthropy out there, Vu Le; the COO of the MacArthur Foundation, Kenneth Jones, and President Joe Biden's appointee as CEO of AmeriCorps, Michael D. Smith. These opportunities to connect were both enriching and sustaining for me, especially during the isolation of the pandemic. And, most exciting of all, I get to invite you into these fun, informative, and intimate conversations.
Please enjoy browsing our podcast site! Leave us a review, send me a note, or leave a voicemail! Of course, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and sign-up for our mailing list!
And, as you keep driving change, remember to keep your tank full, take care of yourself, and take care of one another.