Episodes

During this long dark winter, we have a bright conversation with a colleague who is managing the operations of a national social justice organization, and who can offer us some rays of hope. Our guest is Andrea Frye. Andrea is the Operations Director of Peoples’ Action, a national network of state & local grassroots power-building organizations united in fighting for justice. This episode gives you a concrete example of the value created for an organization and its staff when they use capacity...

It’s the season finale and the end of 2021! To wrap up our season 2 exploration of talent-investing, Rusty shares his top three takeaways from these 16 episodes. He also shares a cool new feature of our show: Podcast Collections. And we welcome back friend-of-the-show Monisha Kapila for some holiday schmoozing and reflection on the Talent Matters Remix, the special three-part series that was a prominent part of this season. The Fund the People podcast will return in Spring 2022. We wish you all...

Today’s social justice nonprofit leaders are fighting for communities that have been impacted by trauma, even as the nonprofit leaders are experiencing or organizational and personal trauma themselves. Racial equity and social justice require talent-investing. In this episode, Rusty talks with Sidney Hargro, the inaugural Executive Director at The LeadersTrust, a new multi-funder grantmaking initiative that offers an effective, evaluated approach to talent-investing that has been tested for 20 y...

Auberle is a sprawling Pittsburgh-area social service nonprofit that has been named “Top Workplace” nine times by The Pittsburgh Business Times, and is described by employees as flexible, supportive, comfortable, and safe. In this episode, Rusty speaks with Abby Wolensky and Ashley Pesi, Director and Program Manager (respectively) in Auberle’s workforce development program, about the various ways the organization supports and develops its staff. Our guests explain how the organization is devote...

Independent Sector (“IS”) is a national organization that represents the nonprofit sector in Washington. In this episode, Rusty speaks with Jeffrey Moore, its Chief Strategy Officer, about the importance of having a seat at the table with the federal government. The nonprofit sector is the trusted infrastructure in communities, and also 10% of the private workforce in the country. To raise our visibility, and make sure that our government understands and partners with the nonprofit sector, IS h...

Movement Talent was launched in 2020 to introduce a new way of finding, supporting, and maximizing talent for social justice organizations in the U.S. In this episode, Rusty speaks with its founder, Linda Nguyen, about the ways they have been working towards a more collaborative, equitable, holistic, and efficient approach to talent in progressive social movements. The conversation covers Movement Talent’s role as a support system at the organizational level, and at the individual level as well...

Government contracts are a crucial revenue stream for large swaths of the nonprofit sector. In many organizations, employee wages and other compensation factors are based on the terms of government contracts. So there’s a close connection between government contracting practices and nonprofit workforce issues. In this episode, Rusty talks with Jennifer Geiling from the NYC Mayor’s Office about the City's efforts to create a more equitable, accessible, transparent, and standard process for nonpro...

In this episode, we speak with Roger Nozaki, Vice President at the Barr Foundation. You’ll get the rare opportunity to hear a foundation executive thinking through their work supporting nonprofit sector effectiveness. Roger shares his evolving ideas along the continuum from investing at the level of individuals - in particular executive directors - toward investing in “people-systems”, and a regional talent ecosystem for nonprofits. We discuss how racial equity can be bolstered through such eff...

This is the third and final episode of Talent Matters Remix, our special summer series in partnership with ProInspire, co-hosted by Monisha Kapila and Rusty Stahl. In this episode, Monisha and Rusty talk with Michele Booth Cole, Executive Director of Safe Shores - The DC Children’s Advocacy Center, about why and how to build a nonprofit organizational culture that supports and develops employees. Michele reflects on her article, “A Culture of Care, Without Compromise,” in the Stanford Social In...

This is the second episode of Talent Matters Remix, our three-episode series in partnership with ProInspire, co-hosted by Monisha Kapila and Rusty Stahl. In this episode, Monisha and Rusty talk with Stephen Bauer about supporting a diverse and inclusive next generation for the nonprofit workforce. Steve reflects on the article he wrote about developing leaders who are both value-based and results-driven, which was part of the Talent Matters series on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog. ...

This is the first episode of Talent Matters Remix, our three-episode series in partnership with ProInspire, co-hosted by Monisha Kapila and Rusty Stahl. In this episode, Monisha and Rusty talk with Trish Tchume about the tensions between developing individual leaders, and developing networks or communities of leaders. Trish reflects on the article she wrote about network-weaving for the Talent Matters blog series in Stanford Social Innovation Review. She discusses how her experience and thinkin...

In this episode, Rusty shares exciting news about a podcasting partnership series with ProInspire and their Co-CEO Monisha Kapila (our guest on Season 1 Episode 9 of this show), which will be rolled-out during July. In addition, in this episode your host… Reflects on and summarizes the themes of the first six episodes of Season 2, which is focused on the principles and practices of talent investing; Shares more about the work of Fund the People beyond the podcast; and Invites you to utilize ...

In part as a result of the pandemic, more funders are paying attention to the needs and well-being of the people who work in grantee organizations. In this episode, we talk with Caroline Altman Smith, a grantmaker at The Kresge Foundation. The team at Kresge, a large international philanthropy, and their consultants at Community Wealth Partners, have developed a straightforward model for delivering professional development to mid-career grantee staff, with a focus on fueling skills and knowledge...

Now more than ever, society needs nonprofit leaders to break out of restrictions and claim our place in this world. We talk with consultant Nell Edgington about her new book, “Reinventing Social Change: Embrace Abundance to Create a Healthier and More Equitable World.” Nell challenges us to embrace abundance and power as nonprofit leaders. We discuss getting into our “zones of excellence”, kissing scarcity goodbye, and other helpful concepts to transform nonprofit work.

Could it be that nonprofit leaders collectively have the knowledge and skills we need to not only survive but thrive -- and we just need to invest in sharing what we know with each other? The Pierce Family Foundation nurtures organizational capacity and individual leadership by investing in peer-to-peer skills-sharing among nonprofit workers. In this episode, we go deep with Heather Parish, the Foundation’s Co-Executive Director. Heather is joined by Lisa May Simpson, Vice President of Learning ...

In this episode, we go deep into nonprofit talent nerdom with Libbie Landles-Cobb, a Partner at The Bridgespan Group and Fund the People Advisory Council member. We discuss Libbie’s research, which helps us to shift the narrative in the field from a “leadership deficit” to a “leadership development deficit”. And we hear about the programs and consulting she offers, which are providing funders and nonprofits with practical ways to address the leadership development deficit. Libbie also shares ...

New progressive social movements are driving a huge boom of new talent. But leadership development efforts don’t have the funding or scale to keep up. Our guests today are trying to working to change that. In episode 2 of our second season, we’re thrilled to talk with two powerful leaders, Deepak Bhargava and Gara LaMarche, who seek to build a new leadership center for young are building a new leadership center, housed within the City University of New York (CUNY), to support young activists — ...

To set the context for Season 2, your host Rusty Stahl briefly recaps Season 1 and establishes the theme for this new season. Season 1 focused on The Problem Facing the Nonprofit Workforce, and Rusty defines the problem succinctly as a cyclical deficit of investment in nonprofit leaders and workers. The theme for Season 2 is A Proposal for Change. Rusty shares Fund the People’s concepts of talent-investing and talent justice. He defines the talent-investing cycle as a healthier alternative to t...