We’re kicking-off Season 6 with a new 3-part special series, “How Funders Can Support Nonprofit Workers in the Age of Burnout.” It features speakers and topics from a panel discussion hosted by Fund the People at the Center for Effective Philanthropy conference in fall 2023.

In this first episode of the series, you'll learn from a foundation executive director who's leading an important new experiment in how funders invest in the workforce of grantee organizations. The Executive Director is Jamie Allison. The foundation is the Walter & Elise Haas Fund. And the experiment is the Endeavor Fund, which is a program of the Haas Fund. 

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode and links to the resources discussed in the episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

Season 6 is sponsored by Loftis Partners. They've launched the Pay Equity Collective, a peer learning experience that provides capacity building, strategic resources, and a supportive community for nonprofits seeking pathways to pay equity. Visit payequitycollective.com to learn more! Loftis Partners – Empowering organizations and advancing equity, one collective step at a time!

We don’t need Baby Boomers to get out of the way faster.

We don’t need Millennials or Generation Z to slow down their ambition for leadership.

And we certainly don't need to continually ignore Generation X.

Instead, we need to intentionally create a multi-generational, multiracial nonprofit workforce.

The more we push long-serving leaders to get out, the more resistance we get. The more we push emerging leaders to stay put, the less likely they'll be to stay in their organizations and in the sector. We need new ways to be together, to work together. Here are four suggestions for building a multigenerational, multiracial nonprofit workforce.

This episode wraps up Season 5 and this round of Rusty’s Rants and Reflections. You can hear the full Rants and Reflections series on this Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0bkiGBJqDkRwZzcw5qmdNs?si=b7fCU-56RPuhJdW9FdzeKQ&pi=u-jWbHl1hIT5mS.

Coming soon: Season 6 features tons of amazing resources and ideas from funders and nonprofit leaders!

Go to the episode page on our podcast page ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠⁠⁠ to get a transcript of this episode.

We invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests and episodes of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠⁠⁠⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠.

You can also fund our blog, toolkit, sign up for our mailing list, and get other resources on our website, ⁠⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠⁠.

This episode discusses key trends and emerging practices that are sweeping across the funding community. It highlights the glaring gap in these important ideas and practices, and how talent-investing could add value to these ideas.

Go to the episode page on our podcast page fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠⁠ to listen and get a transcript of this episode.

We invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests and episodes of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠⁠⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠⁠⁠.

You can also fund our blog, toolkit, sign up for our mailing list, and get other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠.

In this episode, I'm offering up another one of my Rants and Reflections. Today's topic: The Nonprofit Nutrition Cycle.

Let’s face it: many foundation grants are frozen solid. They are restricted by purpose, program, time, even by line items in the budget. To borrow language from George Overholser’s great article on buying, not building, frozen funds are great for “buying” programs, but are terrible for “building” the very organizations that run the programs.

In a just and effective system, every funder would, at minimum, contribute flexible funding and, at best, intentionally deploy resources to build strong organizations, rather than just selectively buying a piece of one specific program.

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

This episode exposes the insane double standard between how staff costs are treated in private foundation budgets, and how staff costs are treated in nonprofit budgets and the grants that support them. 

If you want to understand why private foundations are expected to pay great salaries and benefits, while public charities are expected to compensate with poverty wages, this episode succinctly explains the legal underpinnings of this difference. 

The double standard must be at the center of our conversations about “full costs,” the “overhead” myth, and “direct” versus “indirect” costs. 

To start that conversation, I offer a radical proposal for how to address the double standard! Take a listen and let me know what you think.

This episode is part of our Rusty's Rants and Reflections series. The series offers Rusty's provocative reflections and ideas about investing in the nonprofit workforce.

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

In this episode, we offer a critique of a big idea that has led philanthropy and the nonprofit sector astray since 2006, and has negatively impacted our workforce. And I’m going to tell you how Fund the People has been challenging this idea and reframing the issue.

The Bridgespan Group is a major consulting firm serving foundations and nonprofits that was co-founded in 2000 by two Bain and Company executives. In the early days of 2006, Bridgespan caused a huge stir in the sector when they declared that there is a “deficit of leadership in the nonprofit sector.”

Their research suggested that when long-serving Baby Boomer executive directors retired, there would statistically not be enough Generation X to fill their seats. And, they said, with the number of nonprofits growing each year, the number of seats would keep getting bigger as the population to fill them got smaller.

The study was based on deficit thinking. And while it sought to encourage investment in nonprofit executives, it had all kinds of unintended consequences.

Resources:

This episode is part of our Rusty's Rants and Reflections series. The series offers Rusty's provocative reflections and ideas about investing in the nonprofit workforce. 

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

We appreciate that numerous funders have been trying to support the personal well-being of nonprofit workers during recent years. However, in this episode you’ll hear Rusty’s reflection on why “mini-grants” for wellness is in no way an adequate response to the challenges confronted by the nonprofit workforce. And you’ll learn the concept of turning the funding formula upside down, so staffing issues are treated with the level of attention that they need and deserve.

Resources:

This episode is part of our Rusty's Rants and Reflections series. The series offers Rusty's provocative reflections and ideas about investing in the nonprofit workforce. 

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode and links to the resources discussed in the episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

In this episode, Rusty discusses how fear freezes talent-investing, and how fear is a factor for both leaders in both nonprofits and foundations. For example, many nonprofits fear losing funding if they expose the challenges they face in supporting their staff. And many funders fear that their grantees may become too reliant on them for staffing costs. If and when we can alleviate these fears, we can unlock new momentum for talent-investing and talent justice.

This episode is part of our Rusty's Rants and Reflections series. The series offers Rusty's provocative reflections and ideas about investing in the nonprofit workforce.

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode and links to the resources discussed in the episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

As discussed in the previous episode, our sector has inherited myths that keep funders from investing in the nonprofit workforce. One of these, which we refer to as the Soft Stuff Myth, maintains the idea that it is impossible to prove that investing in nonprofit workers can improve programs and their impact. In this episode...

This episode is part of our Rusty's Rants and Reflections series. The series offers Rusty's provocative reflections and ideas about investing in the nonprofit workforce.

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode and links to the resources discussed in the episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.

In this episode, you’ll learn about four myths that shape attitudes and behaviors which keep funders from investing in nonprofit workers.

This episode, which is based on the Soft Stuff Doesn’t Have to be Hard article, is part of our Rusty's Rants and Reflections series. The series offers Rusty's provocative reflections and ideas about investing in the nonprofit workforce.

Go to our website for a transcript of this episode and links to the resources discussed in the episode. You can find all the episodes of this podcast plus our blog, toolkit and other resources on our website, ⁠⁠fundthepeople.org⁠⁠. And we invite you to learn from all the amazing past guests of Fund the People - A Podcast with Rusty Stahl at ⁠fundthepeople.org/ftp_podcast⁠.