Tiny Spark

By Tiny Spark

What's Tiny Spark about?

We investigate philanthropy, nonprofits and international aid. In-depth interviews and shoe leather reporting from across the globe. Send us your tips. www.tinyspark.org

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Tiny Spark episodes:

12.22.2021
‘Dirty Work’ Raises Moral Questions
Journalist and author Eyal Press’ book Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America examines the morally troubling jobs that are done in our name, and shines a light on the workers who do them. Press...
11.24.2021
How the Prison-Industrial Complex Undermines Immigrant Rights
As the federal government pours billions of dollars into private detention facilities, new research shows political donations from these for-profit companies are influencing policymakers to support legislation criminalizing undocumented immigrants. University of New Mexico associate professor Loren Collingwood talks about...
11.11.2021
For This Art Curator, the Aesthetic is Political
‘There have been so many important critiques of the nude in art history,’ writer and art curator Macushla Robinson tells us, and she’s added her own critique in the form of an upcoming book project. Every Rape at the Met...
11.03.2021
Community First! Tiny Homes, Big Intentions
As the U.S. deals with a severe crisis with up to 600,000 people experiencing homelessness each night, we tour the Community First! village in Austin. This unique community was established to provide affordable, permanent housing for the chronically homeless in...
10.07.2021
Stanford Professors Take On Silicon Valley
We speak to the authors of System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong, and How We Can Reboot. The trio of Stanford professors use a cross-disciplinary approach to critique technologists and the outsized power they wield in society. By weaving...
09.23.2021
Broadway’s Break: A Deep Breath For The Industry?
Broadway has returned after closing eighteen months ago. We speak to actors, writers and directors about what the break meant for their lives and work. One prepares to make his Broadway debut, another looks beyond the stage, and all tell...
09.15.2021
Tackling Erasures with a 'Radical Archive'
In light of troubling events in Afghanistan, we speak to collaborating artists Chitra Ganesh and Mariam Ghani on threats to the country's archives, the ‘radical archivists’ who have preserved them to date, and how this pair of artists practice radical...
08.12.2021
Invisible by Default: What You Won't See on GoFundMe
For Nora Kenworthy, GoFundMe is “the research topic that I can't escape.” She recently studied 175,000 GoFundMe campaigns from the COVID era and discovered nearly half didn’t receive a single donation. We discuss the stark inequities around these platforms and...
07.28.2021
The Women Forgotten in the Wars We Started
Are women and girls forgotten in crises and conflicts in Myanmar, Ethiopia and Afghanistan? We speak to women's rights activists about what drives them, and ask whether they feel women & girls are sidelined in these kinds of conflicts. TW:...
07.01.2021
'Missing and Maligned' No More, Muslims Push For Better Roles
The Pillars fund, run by young Muslim philanthropists, has teamed up with academics and Hollywood actors to gather data proving what they’ve long suspected: Muslims are poorly represented on screen. Pillars’ Arij Mikati and Kalia Abiade lay out the problem,...
06.10.2021
Let’s Talk About Sex, Sexism and Health Equity
We speak to Dr. Sophia Yen, entrepreneur and outspoken advocate for women’s reproductive health and empowerment. Dr. Yen founded a birth control startup to “just ship women birth control and keep shipping it until they tell us to stop.” She...
05.26.2021
The Wealth Defense Industry - or How Billionaires Hide Their Assets
In his new book The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, Chuck Collins unmasks how billionaires protect their wealth, power, and privilege.
05.06.2021
Power and Consent: Reconsidering Oral History
Half a century ago, billionaire philanthropist Doris Duke funded universities to record Native American oral histories. Today, her foundation is supporting an effort to digitize the recordings and return them to the tribes. Alyce Sadongei is leading the project and...
04.29.2021
The Culinary Artist Putting Liberation on the Menu
The People's Kitchen Collective uses food and art to address racial and social justice issues. Co-founder Jocelyn Jackson talks to us about their large-scale meals, which offer time and nourishment for communities to heal.
04.22.2021
Food Rescue Hero: Salvaging Food Waste to End Hunger
Food Rescue Hero gets volunteers to pick up excess food from restaurants and grocers and deliver it to people who need it. Founder and CEO Leah Lizarondo shares her journey creating a tech tool that says it has rescued some...
04.08.2021
'We Have Names': Meet the Women Fighting for Climate Justice
Climate scientist Ndoni Mcunu and climate activist Evelyn Acham celebrate the African scientists and activists fighting for the planet. We speak to the pair about the difficulty of this work, and learn what inspires them to keep going.
03.25.2021
Found in Translation Seeks Language Justice
Found in Translation, a Boston-based nonprofit, trains bilingual women as medical interpreters. In this podcast, founder Maria Vertkin and three graduates who speak Vietnamese, Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese, explain why this life-changing work is so necessary.
03.11.2021
Curator Says It’s Time to Tackle Art World’s Racist Culture
Independent art curator Kelli Morgan shares personal, painful experiences of institutional racism and says it’s time to call out the art world’s toxic white supremacist culture.
02.11.2021
If Colonialism Is the Disease, Are Reparations the Cure?
Physician and anthropologist Eugene Richardson’s book ‘Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health’ critiques practices that perpetuate inequality. In this podcast, he argues that global health equity requires not just medicine, but reparations that undo Western colonial harms.
12.23.2020
Giving Circles: A Gift to Philanthropy
A diverse group of women discuss the power of giving circles as a way to build community, democratize philanthropy, and support local grassroots organizations.
12.16.2020
The Humanitarian Sector Needs To Value African Women
At the end of a year dominated by COVID-19, race, and social justice, three African feminists with ties to development tell us why they are exhausted and what needs to change.
11.19.2020
The Black Women Making Birth Better
Black women are up to four times more likely to die during pregnancy in the US than white women. We dig into the racist structures behind this and speak to a pair of powerful women working to fix it.
10.15.2020
Donors’ Behavior Key to #MeToo in Fundraising
Working in a field where one in four women experience sexual harassment, nonprofit fundraisers Liz LeClair and Heather Hill describe the personal and professional costs of sexual abuse and explain why frontline fundraisers need more protection from donors.
09.30.2020
The Woman Who 'Saved Mercy Corps'
Tania Culver-Humphrey's father, co-founder of Mercy Corps, abused her when she was a child. A year after going public, she charts the journey from “institutional betrayal” to being embraced by employees as a brave whistleblower. Content warning: This podcast contains...
07.02.2020
The Colonialism of Prizes & Publishing
Award-winning Zambian writer Namwali Serpell digs into publishing’s problems with race and colonialism, as well as the enduring legacy of white saviorism in literature.
06.18.2020
"The Country Does Not Like Me"
Three generations of Black women in Baltimore share their perspectives on the significance of today’s protests, reflecting on what has - and has not - changed in the past fifty years.
05.31.2020
Why Teachers, Not Reformers, Should 'Reimagine Education'
Education expert Diane Ravitch documents the corrupting influence of major philanthropists in “school reform” efforts and celebrates the educators who resist.
05.12.2020
'I Don't Feel Like A Hero': Voices from the COVID-19 Front Lines
With nursing homes leading as COVID-19 hotspots, frontline nurses speak to us about unsafe working conditions and reject the notion that they are “heroes.”
04.29.2020
Former CDC Head Pushes For Equity In Pandemic Policies
Having led the CDC during the deadly H1N1 influenza pandemic, Dr. Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, shares the lessons he learned as we deal with COVID-19.
04.16.2020
Facing 'Existential Threat,' Nonprofit Leaders Hold It Together
Nonprofit leaders share their hopes and fears about the challenges facing their organizations during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.
04.09.2020
COVID-19 Crisis ‘Requires Us All To Be Bolder’
Writer and blogger Vu Le describes how the COVID-19 crisis is overwhelming nonprofit leaders and why it should cause philanthropy to rethink its funding practices.
03.11.2020
When Nonprofit Compensation is ‘An Elaborate Game of Pretend'
Nonprofit workers do it for the cause, but they also want to pay their bills. Artist Samantha Fein explains why she feels that the nonprofit art world is broken, and says that if it doesn’t change the art world could...
12.19.2019
The Black Woman’s Guide To Philanthropy
How are Black women redefining what it means to be philanthropists? We sit down with four leaders in philanthropy and impact investing to discuss how their race and gender affect and inspire their work.
11.27.2019
Resilience on the Reservation
We meet the people involved in grassroots movements to culturally and economically empower the Oglala Lakota Nation living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, one of the most impoverished and neglected regions in the country.
11.07.2019
The Guilty Project: 'How Do You Defend Those People?'
Criminal defense lawyer Abbe Smith is often asked how she defends people accused of committing terrible crimes. Hear her moving reply, and learn why she believes the guilty deserve a spirited defense.
10.29.2019
The Innocence Project: Challenging The Justice System's Abyss
Innocence Project attorneys and law students in Texas take on an enormous pile of cases every year, tackling legal and moral challenges as they work to free the wrongfully convicted from prison.
10.11.2019
In Climate Crisis, We Need Love and Science
Pastor and activist, Rev. Mariama White-Hammond describes how her experience of racial and economic injustice led her to fight for the planet as a whole and explains why it is time to “live differently.”
09.24.2019
The You-Sized Hole in the Environmental Movement
Two climate change advocates discuss the need to understand the destruction of the environment through a racial lens, and the promising and powerful future of inclusive climate action.
09.12.2019
Tax Us More says Multimillionaire
We speak with multimillionaire Nick Hanauer, who calls on the nation’s wealthiest to pay more tax and for all of us to pay more attention to righting the economy’s systemic wrongs.
07.01.2019
For Volunteer Humanitarians, “Solidarity Is Not a Crime”
Appalling conditions in the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in France drew people from across Europe to help. A volunteer shares her experience and explains how rising anti-immigrant policies are turning ordinary citizens into humanitarians.
06.12.2019
Baby Bonds: A ‘Birthright To Capital’
We explore ways to decrease wealth inequality in the US with economist Darrick Hamilton who proposes giving every newborn thousands of dollars in a ‘baby bond’ account which they can access when they turn 18.
05.29.2019
A Plan To Reverse "Economic Apartheid" In The U.S.
As inequality grows, we look at look at ideas for narrowing the economic gap between the races, from reparations to raising the minimum wage.
05.09.2019
On A Mission To Make White People Uncomfortable
Using fiery Instagram posts, and uncomfortable tweets, the social media campaign No White Saviors challenges white people to examine race, power, and their own roles when attempting to 'help' in communities and countries not their own. Its co-founders explain why their motto...
04.23.2019
Orphanage Voluntourism – Trafficking on Good Intentions
Is it possible for charity to worsen the lives of those they purport to help? We investigate how a global surge in one form of “voluntourism” exploits vulnerable children and contributes to child trafficking
04.05.2019
The Ethics of Nonprofit Storytelling: Survivor Porn and Parading Trauma
We explore nonprofits’ propensity to create “survivor porn” and the ways in which the sector trades in “parading trauma".
03.22.2019
How Philanthropy "Captures" Social Movements
Megan Ming Francis explains how philanthropists—even well-intentioned ones—can “capture” the social movements they fund and, in doing so, steer grassroots organizations and activists away from their original missions.
03.08.2019
Could ‘Radical Tough Love’ Improve The Internet? These Women Think So
On International Women’s Day, we speak to the founders of #VisibleWikiWomen about their efforts to decolonize the Internet, and to “make all of the wonderful women in the world visible” on one of the world’s most popular websites: Wikipedia.
02.21.2019
A Place Where You Can Speak Your Mind to That Foundation
The co-directors of GrantAdvisor, a Yelp-like site that rates the nation's charitable foundations, describe how fears of retribution in the field inspired them to launch the platform, and why honest dialogue between nonprofits and foundations can help make philanthropy better.
02.07.2019
Nonprofit AF: Fragility, Frustration And Funding
Whether vocally critiquing the sector on his blog Nonprofit AF, or working to develop leaders of color at his nonprofit in Seattle, Vu Le’s frustrations fuel his drive to make the industry do better.
01.25.2019
A Cost Of Med School Debt: Poor Patients, No Doctors
Hoping to diversify the next generation of doctors and deal with a drastic decrease in the number of primary care physicians in the US, New York University is now offering free tuition to its medical school students. But will it...

What's Tiny Spark about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Tiny Spark episodes:

‘Dirty Work’ Raises Moral Questions

How the Prison-Industrial Complex Undermines Immigrant Rights

For This Art Curator, the Aesthetic is Political

Community First! Tiny Homes, Big Intentions

Stanford Professors Take On Silicon Valley

Broadway’s Break: A Deep Breath For The Industry?

Tackling Erasures with a 'Radical Archive'

Invisible by Default: What You Won't See on GoFundMe

The Women Forgotten in the Wars We Started

'Missing and Maligned' No More, Muslims Push For Better Roles

Let’s Talk About Sex, Sexism and Health Equity

The Wealth Defense Industry - or How Billionaires Hide Their Assets

Power and Consent: Reconsidering Oral History

The Culinary Artist Putting Liberation on the Menu

Food Rescue Hero: Salvaging Food Waste to End Hunger

'We Have Names': Meet the Women Fighting for Climate Justice

Found in Translation Seeks Language Justice

Curator Says It’s Time to Tackle Art World’s Racist Culture

If Colonialism Is the Disease, Are Reparations the Cure?

Giving Circles: A Gift to Philanthropy

The Humanitarian Sector Needs To Value African Women

The Black Women Making Birth Better

Donors’ Behavior Key to #MeToo in Fundraising

The Woman Who 'Saved Mercy Corps'

The Colonialism of Prizes & Publishing

"The Country Does Not Like Me"

Why Teachers, Not Reformers, Should 'Reimagine Education'

'I Don't Feel Like A Hero': Voices from the COVID-19 Front Lines

Former CDC Head Pushes For Equity In Pandemic Policies

Facing 'Existential Threat,' Nonprofit Leaders Hold It Together

COVID-19 Crisis ‘Requires Us All To Be Bolder’

When Nonprofit Compensation is ‘An Elaborate Game of Pretend'

The Black Woman’s Guide To Philanthropy

Resilience on the Reservation

The Guilty Project: 'How Do You Defend Those People?'

The Innocence Project: Challenging The Justice System's Abyss

In Climate Crisis, We Need Love and Science

The You-Sized Hole in the Environmental Movement

Tax Us More says Multimillionaire

For Volunteer Humanitarians, “Solidarity Is Not a Crime”

Baby Bonds: A ‘Birthright To Capital’

A Plan To Reverse "Economic Apartheid" In The U.S.

On A Mission To Make White People Uncomfortable

Orphanage Voluntourism – Trafficking on Good Intentions

The Ethics of Nonprofit Storytelling: Survivor Porn and Parading Trauma

How Philanthropy "Captures" Social Movements

Could ‘Radical Tough Love’ Improve The Internet? These Women Think So

A Place Where You Can Speak Your Mind to That Foundation

Nonprofit AF: Fragility, Frustration And Funding

A Cost Of Med School Debt: Poor Patients, No Doctors