In this brief episode, Rusty offers our loyal listeners a special sneak-peek into a new program offering being announced shortly from Fund the People! Don’t miss the inside scoop! Rusty also wraps-up Season 6 by comparing and contrasting stories from some of our amazing guests this season, and offers two key “Aha! moments:” First: when funders invest in the grantee workforce, it can be extremely big, complicated and costly, or it can be small, simple, and take modest dollars. Or something in between. Second: If nonprofits have the political will and savvy to invest in their workers, they don’t ..read more

This episode makes clear the need for and value of talent-investing for community foundations and other place-focused funders. Our guest, Elizabeth Kidd of the Community Foundation of the Holland/Zeeland Area, demonstrates how even the most modest dollar amounts used in strategic, responsive talent-investing at key inflection points in the lifecycle of leaders and their institutions, can have exponentially positive impact for nonprofit executives, workers, organizations, and communities. Listen to gain an understanding of… Why and how talent-investing has become valuable to the board and sta ..read more

In this episode, you’ll gain important insights into current issues in the nonprofit workforce, and how professional development is evolving in our sector, particularly but not exclusively as it relates to leaders and workers of color. Our guest is Yolanda Coentro of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice, one of the fastest-growing and most exciting professional development providers for nonprofits. Founded in 2007, the Institute now offers a portfolio of programs that serve nonprofit leaders from early-career all the way through the executive level. Go to our website for a transcript of the ep ..read more

In today's episode, you'll learn strategies and practical tips for creating happy, healthy, nonprofit workers and workplaces. Our guest Beth Kanter is a leading expert on nonprofit technology and she is co-author of the book Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact Without Burnout. You'll learn about tangible tools for preventing burnout at the individual and organizational levels, and learn what is available in her book. We discuss why she wrote the book, how nonprofit wellbeing has changed over the six years since it was published, and what she would write differently if she were writ ..read more

Dr. Akilah Watkins is President and CEO of Independent Sector, one of the national organizations that pulls together our sector and represents it in Washington. Dr. Watkins has been on a national listening tour of the nonprofit sector since she took on this leadership role in January 2023. In this episode, she shares what she’s heard about the challenges facing the nonprofit workforce. She also shares how Independent Sector is working to improve the policy environment for nonprofits as employers. Go to our website for a transcript of the episode and links to the resources discussed in the ..read more

Have you ever thought that funder-sponsored organizational ‘capacity building’ may be detrimental to nonprofit workers and their communities? Today we talk about concrete ways we could improve the framing and practice of capacity building to better support the brilliance and resilience of diverse nonprofit workers and organizations. Today's guests are Melissa DeShields and Marcus Littles from Frontline Solutions, a Black-owned and -led social change consulting firm. We discuss our guests recent Nonprofit Quarterly articles about why the term “capacity building” should be retired, and ways to i ..read more

This episode offers a powerful example of how funders and nonprofits can collaborate and advocate to reform government contracting, so that it works better for the nonprofit sector and the nonprofit workforce. You’ll learn how Mercedes Elizalde (Board member of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon), Felicita Monteblanco (Northwest Health Foundation) and others teamed up to advocate for state contracting reform, and how that resulted in them serving as members of the Governor’s Modernizing Grant Funding and Contracting Task Force. Our powerful guests will help you gain an understanding of: How ..read more

In this episode, you'll get concrete tips for ensuring that nonprofit workers have access to retirement savings from returning guest Chitra Aiyar of Just Futures. Chitra first joined us in Season 3 Episode 10 in December of 2022, when we discussed what's wrong with nonprofit retirement. Today we'll discuss what's right with retirement.  This episode is focused on practical approaches for nonprofit employers to establish or enhance retirement savings for their staff team. We also talk about some of the challenges of implementing retirement savings in nonprofits. Go to o ..read more

In this episode, you’ll hear how a new nonprofit executive can start-up innovative investments in employees from scratch, even in a 60-year old organization with 200 staff.  Shaheer Mustafa tells his story at HopeWell, a major foster care nonprofit in Massachusetts. When he took management of the $25 million budget with hundreds of staff, there was no internal capacity that you would expect from an HR team. Since then, he has leveraged government and philanthropic investments to build-out a sophisticated set of investments in staff, and focused on increasing representation, leadership, an ..read more

This episode spotlights how one foundation has made an ongoing commitment to supporting “healing justice” as part of its grantmaking.  We're pleased to speak with Desiree Flores, Executive Director of the General Service Foundation. As they say on the Foundation's website, "Social justice work can be affirming, invigorating, and nourishing. But for leaders in the struggle, the work can also be rife with conflict, overwork, isolation, trauma, and oppression...we have heard movement leaders struggling increasingly with burnout and exhaustion. At GSF, we’ve been exploring how we, as funders ..read more