We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

By We Are For GoodBusiness Non-Profit

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We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits episodes

October 14749. Stewarding a 160-Year Legacy: How to Honor History While Driving Change - Archana Jayaram, Brooklyn Community Services
Archana Jayaram stepped in as CEO of Brooklyn Community Services just as one of New York City's oldest nonprofits entered its 160th year. Her first move wasn't a bold new vision. It was a question: "What do you need?"
Founded in 1866, BCS now serves more than 14,000 Brooklynites a year across housing, mental health, education, and workforce development. Archana shares how she's honoring that legacy while listening her way toward what comes next. 🩵
In this Possible in Practice episode, you'll hear:
How to lead change inside a long-standing institution by starting with the people who do the work
Why the people closest to the problem are the ones who know what they need, and how BCS stays community-centric at scale
What young people in Brooklyn said they actually need for their mental health, and why it surprised everyone
You'll walk away with a listening-first playbook for leading through legacy, change, and chaos. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(2:16) Archana's story: West Virginia roots and the power of mutual aid
(3:30) Inside the government–nonprofit partnership
(7:03) BCS's founding story: guided by history, not bound by it
(10:09) Staying community-centric while serving 14,000 people
(13:04) What young people said about mental health
(16:38) Leading change inside a legacy institution
(20:41) A donor who doubled his gift without being asked
(24:01) Build a ladder out of chaos: the one good thing
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/749
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27 min
October 12748. How One Founder’s Lived Experience Created 116,000 Anchors - Ali Borowsky, Find Your Anchor
A note before you listen: This episode discusses suicide and suicide prevention. If you or someone you know is struggling, you’re not alone. In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7. Outside the U.S., visit findahelpline.com to find support near you.
Ali Borowsky used to design for the NHL Winter Classic. Now she designs something far more personal: a small blue box that tells whoever finds it that strangers care. 🩵
Rooted in her own lived experience, Find Your Anchor brings color, creativity, and humanity to suicide prevention. Guest co-host Aila Malik brought Ali to the mic to share how a grassroots nonprofit with a product reached 116,000 boxes through handwritten notes, community box builds, and partners from middle schools to the San Francisco 49ers.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why letting partners lead is the fastest way to reach communities you could never reach alone
How staying "unapologetically analog" helped a small nonprofit scale without losing its soul
What happens when 3,500 requests arrive in 24 hours and your business model is karma
How to protect your own wellness when your heart work becomes your job
You'll walk away with a fresh take on partnership, scale, and the small things that keep people going.
Episode Highlights:
(4:42) Ali's story: creating what she wished she'd had
(5:41) What's inside the box, and what an "anchor" really is
(10:39) Three ways the boxes get into the world
(13:17) Customizing boxes with nonprofit partners
(16:21) From box one to 116,000: staying unapologetically analog
(21:37) A nonprofit with a product: when your business model is karma
(24:05) What Ali has learned about win-win partnerships
(27:04) Staying well while doing heart work
(35:41) One good thing: learn three people's anchors
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/748
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40 min
October 07747. How One $14,410 Fundraiser Became a Global Movement - Jeremy Vallerand, Atlas Free
Jeremy Vallerand and a few friends turned a Mount Rainier climb into a fundraiser: $1 for every vertical foot, $14,410 total. It was supposed to be a one-off. It wasn't.
Today, Atlas Free is a global network of 160+ organizations in 67 countries fighting sex trafficking, still fueled by the community hikes and climbs that started it all. 🩵
In this Possible in Practice episode, you'll hear:
How one climb became hundreds of community-led hikes and climbs every year, and the simple idea that made it spread: do what you love to fight what you hate
Why Atlas Free stopped sending Americans overseas and started backing the local leaders already doing the work
Why donors can tell when you only want their money, and why community has to come before the ask
What a $1 million gift and an $18.37 piggy bank taught Jeremy about stewarding every act of generosity
You'll walk away with a blueprint for inviting your community into the mission, not just the fundraising. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(3:09) Refugees in the spare bedroom and the trip to India that changed everything
(6:52) Climb for Captives: turning a Mount Rainier climb into a $14,410 fundraiser
(9:00) "Do what we love to fight what we hate": how one climb became hundreds
(10:48) From one climb to 160+ organizations in 67 countries
(14:00) Ethical storytelling: what you choose not to say
(17:52) Monthly giving: why community comes before the ask
(20:51) A $1 million gift and an $18.37 piggy bank
(23:39) The one good thing: who you're with matters more than what you're doing
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/747
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28 min
October 05746. 1 in 2 American Adults Struggle with Social Connection. Nonprofits Are Part of the Solution. - Aaron Hurst
1 in 2 American adults is struggling with social connection, and fewer than 20% are thriving. Aaron Hurst, the social entrepreneur behind the Taproot Foundation and the pro bono movement, says that's why volunteering and giving are collapsing, and why nonprofits hold the key to reversing it.
Guest co-host Susan McPherson, author of The Lost Art of Connecting, joins us to dig into the U.S. Chamber of Connection's Six Points of Connection report, the first national index of its kind.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why the sector doesn't have a philanthropy problem or a volunteer problem. It has a social connection problem.
The six points of connection every person needs, and the one the data says matters most
Why your nonprofit should start measuring connection outcomes now, before the funding arrives
You'll walk away seeing your organization for what it already is: connection infrastructure for your community. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(4:07) Aaron's origin story and journey to where he is today
(7:34) "What do you most want in the world?"
(12:30) The Six Points of Connection report
(15:48) 1 in 2 Americans is struggling, and philanthropy is feeling it
(18:19) Nonprofits as connection infrastructure
(19:20) Start capturing connection outcomes now
(22:24) Why loneliness shuts down empathy
(25:27) One good thing: hope
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/746
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28 min
September 30745. 3 Case Studies on Using Data + Storytelling to Grow Your Org's Impact - Urina Harrell
A pandemic relief territory that grew 39% while every area around it went red. A fund that deployed capital fast and couldn't prove what it did. A 55-year-old nonprofit still running on paper.
Urina Harrell, founder of Vox Pop Branding, walks through all three — what was broken, what she built, and what happened next. 🩵
In this episode, you'll hear:
Case study 1 — Long Beach: Why workshops and education stopped moving the needle, and how rolling up sleeves alongside founders produced the only green zone on the map
Case study 2 — JLH Fund: How to build impact measurement backward, after the money's already out the door, using grantee interviews that double as marketing
Case study 3 — Pools of Hope: The digital numbers the grant report never asked for — email list, reach, clicks — that turned into renewal after renewal
The two lessons that show up in all three: start from a baseline you already collect, and let a third party ask the questions your grantees won't answer honestly
The lowest-lift first step if you have no data at all — QR code stickers, not a new CRM
Three different orgs, one repeatable playbook for connecting data to story to funding. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(3:18) From nosy kid to Vox Pop: curiosity as a career strategy
(5:33) Case study 1: Long Beach, when workshops stopped working
(9:21) The two lessons: baselines and third-party reporting
(12:25) Case study 2: JLH Fund, measuring impact after the fact
(15:47) Case study 3: Pools of Hope, digital numbers as grant currency
(18:30) Where to start if you have no data story yet
(20:08) A quilt with her name on it
(22:03) Stay curious: the one good thing
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/745
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25 min
September 28744. Make the Problem Bigger: A Different Way to Build Community - Greg Tehven, Emerging Prairie
Greg Tehven runs a $5.5 million nonprofit with 40 teammates in Fargo, North Dakota — and his advice to leaders is to stop working on problems they can solve alone.
That instinct built Emerging Prairie into the heartbeat of a region's entrepreneurial ecosystem, launched Grand Farm, and turned TEDx Fargo into an event 1,000+ people build their year around. Guest co-host Stacy Huston, CEO of SixDegrees.org, brings Greg on to talk about what it actually takes. 🩵
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why "make the problem bigger" is the fastest way to get more people working on it — and more fun besides
The business model Greg borrowed from a Buddhist teacher: if a tree adds value to the community, the community waters it
How Emerging Prairie designs for radical inclusion — childcare, food choices, time of day — and why those small barriers decide who shows up
What Greg learned about receiving, not just giving, in a gift shop in India
How serving the board first changed what the board gave back
You'll walk away with a way of building that doesn't require permission, a finished plan, or a bigger budget. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(4:05) Gravel roads and good neighbors: the making of Greg
(7:38) From burnout to the Fargo thesis
(11:17) Designing for generosity: the business model
(14:09) Tolerance of ambiguity (and the TEDx story nobody saw coming)
(21:43) Fighting for self, team, and community
(26:50) The gift shop in India: learning to receive
(30:21) Serving the board before asking the board
(34:50) What doesn't show up in a grant application
(37:55) One good thing: make the problem bigger
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/744
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42 min
September 23743. Unlock the Full Potential of Your Peer-to-Peer Program - Victoria Vighetto, ZERO Prostate Cancer
When ZERO Prostate Cancer's peer-to-peer program started slipping, Victoria Vighetto didn't tell her field staff to make more calls. She walked the constituent journey herself — and found the problem sitting in an email.
The call-to-action button was too far down. The sends were landing at the wrong time for open rates. Registration was where people were falling out. 🩵
In this Possible in Practice episode, you'll hear:
Why a fundraising dip is almost never a motivation problem — and the diagnostic question to ask instead
How ZERO ran a three-day, $30K matching challenge and saw fundraising jump more than 50% while registration was still down 14%
What happened when they stopped asking field staff to pull a dozen reports and gave them a work center with a to-do list: who to call, and what to say
How to run personalization at scale for thousands of fundraisers without losing the personal part
The one place to start: register for your own event, make a donation, build a page, and find a single pain point
You'll walk away with a repeatable way to audit your own peer-to-peer program — and permission to fix one thing instead of everything. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(2:44) Victoria's path into nonprofit work
(3:51) ZERO's mission and the $20M Blitz the Barriers initiative
(5:29) Diagnosing a revenue problem as a systems problem
(6:51) The results: 14% down in registration, 50%+ up in fundraising
(7:57) Removing friction for field staff: from a dozen reports to one work center
(9:57) Automations that meet fundraisers where they are
(10:40) What makes peer-to-peer actually work: keep it personal
(11:54) The cheer coach and the school bus
(13:28) Where to start: walk your own donor journey
(14:28) Ride-along days and leading from the friction
(15:36) A moment of generosity that stayed with her
(17:19) One good thing: make the desired action the easiest action
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/743
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19 min
September 21742. Money Is Medicine: Decolonizing Wealth and the Future of Philanthropy - Edgar Villanueva
An elder told Edgar Villanueva that the medicine that had chosen him was money. One sentence — and it turned an angry, burned-out program officer into the person rewriting how philanthropy thinks about wealth.
Edgar is the founder and CEO of the Decolonizing Wealth Project and the author of Decolonizing Wealth, now in its second edition. His work has helped move nearly $1 billion toward the communities that need it most. 🩵
Joining us as guest co-host is Lindsey Fuller, Executive Director of The Teaching Well.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why reparative philanthropy starts with a question most institutions refuse to ask: where did this money come from in the first place?
The one shift any leader can make today: do your own work around money, before you ask anyone else for theirs
How Liberated Capital moved $30 million to Black and Indigenous organizations with a $25/month entry point and no gatekeepers
You'll walk away with a different starting point for every funder conversation you have. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(3:38) Growing up between the haves and the have-nots
(8:26) Behind the curtain: what he saw as a young program officer
(10:24) The ice cream party problem
(14:30) The elder, the medicine, and the book that changed everything
(20:16) Reparative philanthropy: where did this money come from?
(24:45) No wealth exists without harm
(29:04) The one shift you can make today
(33:09) Beyond self-care: why leaders have to dig deeper
(37:34) Liberated Capital: a donor community for "whosoever will"
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/742
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42 min
September 16741. Fundraising Problem or Distance Problem? The Reframe That Raised $1M - Connie Lewin
Connie Lewin found the funders. She wrote the emails. She sent the proposals. The response was silence.
With a $1 million goal for a small nonprofit in Rwanda and no established high-net-worth donor network, Connie had to quickly step into a leadership role and take responsibility for the organization’s goal to scale its impact and operations in three years.
What finally moved the money wasn't better writing. It was closing the distance between donors and the people at the center of the mission by tapping into donors' heads and hearts and making the case for giving by connecting business strategy with empathy. 🩵
In this Possible in Practice episode, you'll hear:
The reframe that changed everything: It's not an ask. It's an invitation — and what that actually changes about who you approach and what you say
Why an unfiltered list of hundreds of prospects feels like progress but isn't
What donors are really asking when they hesitate (it's not whether your work is good)
How a 16-year-old raised over $40,000 climbing Kilimanjaro — and what it proved about belonging
You'll walk away with one question to run before your next appeal: do we have a fundraising problem, or a distance problem? 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(2:27) Connie's origin story: a fourth-grade cleanup in New York City
(3:48) Walking into Rwanda: big vision, scrappy team
(5:30) The $1M opportunity — and the plot twist
(8:21) "The response was silence"
(9:00) The reframe: not an ask, an invitation
(10:00) Three moves that closed the distance
(13:59) Funder personas and the confidence gap
(17:47) Why an unfiltered list of hundreds of prospects feels like progress
(18:49) What donors actually want to know
(22:13) Bella's Kilimanjaro climb and the power of belonging
(25:33) One Good Thing: fundraising problem or distance problem?
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/741
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30 min
September 14740. Start Before You're Ready: How Creative Futures Collective Grew from 10 to 3,500 Without a Roadmap - Jai Al-Attas
Jai Al-Attas started a record label at 16, sold it to Virgin Records at 24, and never went to college. So when he moved to LA and tried to get people from a reentry program and a homeless youth org into music industry internships, the question that kept coming back — "are these people in college?" — landed personally.
He didn't have a plan. He had a chip on his shoulder and $1,800 he needed for rent. He spent it on 10 Chromebooks instead. 🩵
Today Creative Futures Collective has moved 3,500 creatives through its programs in 10 cities across three countries — into Nike, Live Nation, Interscope, Forbes 30 Under 30, and one Ralph Lauren artist residency.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why renaming "internship" to "futureship" unlocked doors that had been closed for two years — and what that says about the language your org is using
How Jai and his co-founder funded the first cohort out of their own savings, and why that upfront risk was the only way to get a case study worth showing
Why he refuses to call any of this charity, and how that reframe changed who was asking whom for a favor
How COVID accidentally democratized access to the creative economy — and the alumna who did her placement from a reservation in Arizona
What to do when corporate partners write you a check but won't open the door you actually asked them to open
You'll walk away with permission to start the thing you've been waiting to be ready for. 🩵
Episode Highlights:
(3:33) From a record label at 16 to a one-way ticket to LA
(5:48) "Are these people in college?" — the gatekeeping that started it all
(7:24) Futureships, and paying for them out of pocket
(9:21) COVID, remote work, and Naomi Glasses' path to Ralph Lauren
(12:36) Scaling with Amazon, Soho House, and 10 cities
(14:38) Why this was never charity — and how Untalent was born
(19:13) Best Buy Teen Tech Centers and what partnership looks like
(25:10) One good thing: start before you're ready
Episode Show Notes: www.weareforgood.com/episode/740
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30 min

About We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

From the publisher's feed

The We Are For Good Podcast brings nonprofit professionals + everyday changemakers into conversations with the most innovative, heartwired leaders in social impact. Hosted by Jon McCoy +…