Most nonprofits that fold don't fail because the mission stopped mattering. They fail because 80% of the budget sat on top of one grant, one donor, or one contract, and that one thing disappeared. HawkWatch International has avoided that trap for 40 years, and CEO Nikki Wayment says the fix is not complicated: stop putting all your eggs in one basket, and start treating every donor relationship like it's worth building for a decade, not a campaign.

HawkWatch is a Utah-based raptor conservation nonprofit built on migration research. It has weathered four decades of funding cycles, a pandemic, and the kind of donor fatigue that hits every cause-based organization eventually. On a recent episode of the Charity Charge Show, Wayment walked through exactly how the organization has stayed financially sound long enough to reach its 40th anniversary, and the lessons apply well beyond conservation work.

Quick Summary

• HawkWatch International has operated for 40 years by continually adding new, uncorrelated revenue sources instead of depending on one.
• Personal donor stewardship (handwritten notes, thank you calls with no ask attached) converted a $50 a year donor into a $250,000 estate gift.
• Only about 5% of most people's net worth sits in cash, which means nonprofits that only ask for checks are missing the other 95% of what donors could give.
• A 16 acre property gift and a corporate card built for nonprofit cash flow both show up in the episode as the kind of unplanned, unconventional support that keeps a mission-driven organization solvent.

On this episode of the Charity Charge Show, host Stephen Garten sits down with Dave LeVan, CEO of Water for Good, to talk about how a faith-based water nonprofit doubled its reach without doubling its budget. The conversation covers mergers, decentralization, technology, fundraising, and a mindset shift that most nonprofit leaders never make. Charity Charge builds financial tools for the 501(c)(3) organizations doing exactly this kind of work, which is why these operator-to-operator conversations sit at the center of the show.

• Water for Good delivers water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs in some of the hardest-to-reach communities in sub-Saharan Africa and Cambodia.
• Its three-year "Healthy Village" model has kept 92% of water points flowing and cut childhood diarrhea by 90% over the past decade, per LeVan.
• The organization moved roughly 90% of its 280 staff in-country and gave frontline teams live data, which flattened the hierarchy and reduced burnout.
• Water for Good was formed by merging two healthy nonprofits, a rare move that let each contribute its strengths instead of hiring to fill gaps.
• LeVan's north star: solve the problem and put the organization out of business, not protect it.

Who is Dave LeVan?

Dave LeVan is the CEO of Water for Good, a faith-based nonprofit that transforms lives through access to safe water, improved sanitation, and hygiene. The organization works in difficult places, including the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Cambodia. LeVan spent most of his career in the for-profit world, including a transformation role at Walmart, before joining the organization first as a donor, then a board member, then chief executive.

How big is the global water access problem?

Roughly 697 million people worldwide lack basic access to safe water, meaning they cannot collect it and get home within 30 minutes, the World Health Organization's threshold for basic access. LeVan's figure aligns with the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme's 2025 estimates, which show more than two billion people without safely managed drinking water and hundreds of millions still relying on unsafe or unimproved sources.

Beyond the raw count, LeVan describes a second, hidden cost: women and children spend an estimated 100 million hours a day walking for water. The problem is twofold, he explains: the time it consumes and the fact that the source at the end of the walk is usually unsafe.

On this episode of the Charity Charge Show, host Grayson Harris sits down with Erika Swilley, Executive Director of the NBPA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the National Basketball Players Association. Swilley explains how the foundation turns NBA player fines into matching grants. Her core message applies to any nonprofit leader: intent is not enough, and lasting impact comes from focus, not volume.

About the guest. Erika Swilley has spent more than two decades in sports philanthropy, including senior community and social responsibility roles with the Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors, and Chicago Sky. She now leads the NBPA Foundation, where she created the Fined and Philanthropic campaign and advises active and retired players on building genuine, durable community impact.

Quick Summary

• The NBPA Foundation funds much of its work through pooled player fines, then matches player donations up to $25,000 a year for active players and $15,000 for many retired players.
• The Fined and Philanthropic campaign educates players, agents, and families on where fine money goes and how to tap the match.
• Swilley pushes players away from one-off events like turkey drives and toward year-round, focused giving that builds a legacy.
• Most young players are steered away from starting their own foundation and toward donor-advised funds, fiscal sponsors, or established nonprofits.
• Nonprofits can connect with the foundation through its website or LinkedIn to be considered for player partnerships.

Inside the NBPA Foundation: how player fines fund community work

The NBPA Foundation is a nonprofit that channels NBA player fine money into community programming led by the players themselves. When players receive technical fouls or ejections, those fines are pooled and, at the end of the season, split between NBA Cares and the foundation.

The foundation then reinvests those dollars through a matching grant program that has existed since 2015. Engagement has climbed sharply under Swilley, who describes the model as non-traditional because so much of the funding starts as penalties. In the 2025 offseason, the NBPA reported distributing roughly $1.6 million in matching grants from fine money.

Player statusAnnual matching grant cap

Active players | Up to $25,000 per year
Eligible retired players | Up to $15,000 per year

Fined and Philanthropic: turning penalties into purpose

Fined and Philanthropic is the campaign Swilley created to show players exactly where their fine money goes and how to put it to work. Many players assumed their fines vanished into a black hole with no idea the money funded community programs they could tap.

The campaign uses simple, memorable touches, including hats that tell players where their fine dollars land. The goal is awareness across the full circle around a player, meaning agents, family members, and team staff. Swilley spent 19 years on the team side without knowing these resources existed, so she built the campaign to close that exact gap.

In this episode, nonprofit leader Stacey Davis Stewart discusses the impactful work of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MAD), its history, legislative successes, and future initiatives to prevent impaired driving and save lives.

Food insecurity is rising even as household budgets stretch thinner, and food banks have become core infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of families. On this episode of the Charity Charge Show, Tom Nardacci, CEO of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, breaks down how his organization feeds roughly 350,000 people each month across 23 counties, and what nonprofit executives can learn from how he runs it. The conversation covers local food sourcing, leadership lessons from the for-profit world, and how to build funding resilience when federal support is unpredictable.

Quick Summary

• The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York distributes about 50 million pounds of food annually through nearly 1,000 partner agencies across 23 counties.
• Its Agricultural Hub initiative connects local farms directly to food pantries, with a goal of growing farm and produce distribution to 30 million pounds per year.
• Nardacci applies for-profit team-building and accountability practices to nonprofit operations, treating the food bank like a logistics company.
• Funding volatility, especially around SNAP, makes diversified revenue and strong funder relationships essential for any nonprofit.

About the Guest: Tom Nardacci

Tom Nardacci has served as CEO of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York since August 2023. Before moving into nonprofit leadership, he founded and ran Gramercy Communications, a public relations firm he led for more than 15 years, and launched the Troy Innovation Garage, a business incubator in the Capital Region.

His connection to food access runs deep. His grandparents operated Nardacci's Broadway Food Mart in Rensselaer, New York for 50 years, and he grew up watching them quietly feed neighbors who could not always pay. Today he leads one of the oldest food banks in the country, an organization that operates like a major grocery wholesaler with a fleet of trucks, warehouse operations, and thousands of volunteers.

In the social impact sector, scaling an organization nationally while maintaining deep community trust is one of the hardest balancing acts to pull off. It requires an unshakeable operational foundation, a clear mission, and creative revenue models that move beyond traditional grant dependency.

In this episode of the Charity Charge Show, host Grayson Harris sits down with Jen Rifkin, Executive Director of the Volo Kids Foundation, an organization dedicated to removing economic, gender, and racial barriers to youth sports. Jen shares her inspiring journey from volunteer coach to national executive leader, breaking down the operational "special sauce" behind their 12-state expansion. She also reveals how their unique, symbiotic partnership with a for-profit adult sports league offers a brilliant blueprint for sustainable nonprofit funding.

Show Notes: Key Takeaways

• Build a Replicable Operational Formula: Rapidly scaling a national footprint requires a standardized core program structure—what Jen calls a "cookie-cutter" framework—that can be easily deployed anywhere while leaving room for local market adaptation.
• Leverage Hybrid Corporate Partnerships: Volo Kids sustains its growth through a powerful relationship with Volo Sports, a for-profit adult leagues provider. Guided by the slogan "We play so the kids play free," a portion of adult registration revenue offsets the foundation's core operational costs, allowing donor and grant funds to go directly to youth programming.
• Move at the Speed of Community Trust: Entering a new city shouldn't involve a prescriptive "we know what's best" mentality. Lasting impact is built by attending local neighborhood meetings, listening to schools, and collaborating with local municipalities to fill genuine gaps.
• Prioritize Relational Fundraising over Transactional Grants: In a hyper-competitive funding climate where grant dollars are stretched thin, organic word-of-mouth advocacy from volunteers, coaches, and corporate partners remains the most effective tool for unlocking new donor relationships.

In the social impact sector, being "scrappy" is often badge of honor. Nonprofits routinely stretch every dollar to ensure maximum funding goes directly to their programs. However, when it comes to technology, this efficiency-first mindset can accidentally lead to underinvestment, disjointed tools, and missed opportunities.

On a recent episode of the Charity Charge Show, host Grayson Harris sat down with Adam Eads, Director at TechSoup, and Kelly Ricker, Chief Operating Officer at the Global Technology Association for IT Channel Leaders (GTIA). They discussed a powerful new grant collaboration designed to change the narrative around nonprofit technology. By funding the enrollment of 100 new organizations into the TechSoup Plus platform, GTIA and TechSoup are helping social entrepreneurs bridge the gap between simply having access to software and truly adopting it—with a specific focus on navigating the rapidly changing landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Key Takeaways

• Acquisition vs. Adoption: Securing a software discount is only step one. True digital transformation requires ongoing education to help staff effectively integrate and use those tools to advance their mission.
• The 1% Philanthropy Gap: Less than 1% of global philanthropic funding is currently directed toward technology. Foundations must begin viewing operational tech investments as essential infrastructure rather than compliance-heavy "overhead."
• AI is a Mindset Shift, Not an IT Problem: Successfully implementing AI isn't about transforming nonprofit leaders into computer scientists. It is a change-management exercise focused on small, daily operational wins that free up time for community work.
• Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Learning: Because every nonprofit operates at a different stage of digital maturity, technology training cannot be one-size-fits-all. It must be modular, bite-sized, and meted out exactly where the organization stands.

In a world where 70% of jobs are found through someone you know, "social capital" is more than just a buzzword—it’s a gateway to the future. But for many first-generation students in under-resourced communities, those networks are often out of reach.

In this episode of the Charity Charge Show, Grayson Harris sits down with Heather Wathington, CEO of iMentor, to discuss their ambitious new campaign: Open Doors, Ignite Possibility. Heather shares how iMentor is working to mobilize a movement of mentors, corporate partners, and communities to open 1 million doors for students by 2035. From the profound impact of social capital to the simple power of a listening ear, this conversation is a masterclass in how relationship-driven support can improve the human condition.

Show Notes: Key Takeaways

• Social Capital is the Great Equalizer: Success isn't just about what you know, but who you know . iMentor focuses on building "social capital" for students, helping them access the networks and professional knowledge required to navigate convoluted career pathways.
• The "Everyday Mentor" is the Best Mentor: One of the biggest misconceptions is that you need to be a corporate mogul or a community leader to mentor. Heather emphasizes that students simply need an advocate—someone willing to listen, offer patience, and believe in their limitless potential.
• Long-Term Relationships Yield the Highest ROI: iMentor prioritizes sustained, years-long relationships over transactional interactions. Trust and confidence are built over time, providing a stable foundation for students as they transition from high school to post-secondary life.
• Mentorship as a Lifelong Practice: The goal isn't just a one-time connection . iMentor aims to instill a culture of mentorship where students learn to seek out mentors at every stage of their career and eventually "pay it forward" to the next generation.

American Humane Society protects over 1.7 billion animals annually across 91 countries. Dr. Robin Ganzert has led the organization since 2010, when she stepped in during a financial crisis and a period of mission drift. What she built since then is a case study in what nonprofit discipline actually looks like.

On the Charity Charge Show, Dr. Ganzert walked through the financial reckoning she inherited, why she tells every local organization to stop duplicating services, and how a documentary narrated by Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep became one of their most effective outreach tools.

In this episode of the Charity Charge Show, host Stephen Garten sits down with Kristina "Steen" Joye Lyles, Executive Vice President of Impact for DonorsChoose. Since its founding in 2000, DonorsChoose has revolutionized philanthropy by creating a transparent, direct-to-classroom funding model.

Steen shares her journey from lawyer to educational advocate, the organization's evolution over 26 years, and how they are leveraging two decades of data to prove that resource equity is the key to unlocking student potential.

Show Notes and Key Takeaways

• The Origin Story: Founded by a Bronx history teacher named Charles Best who saw the need for a transparent way for the public to support specific classroom needs.
• A Unique Model: Unlike traditional nonprofits, DonorsChoose does not just send cash. They fulfill specific wish lists ranging from crayons to drones and ship resources directly to schools.
• The Power of Data: With over 1 million teachers on the platform, DonorsChoose uses real time classroom data to track trends like mental health needs and the digital divide.
• The I See Me Initiative: A groundbreaking effort launched in 2018 to support teachers of color and ensure students see themselves reflected in their educators and learning materials.
• Resource Equity: A spiky but core belief that depriving a classroom of resources is the most effective way to ensure a child does not reach their full potential.