Fund the People: A Podcast with Rusty Stahl
The only show that helps YOU invest in the nonprofit workforce! Here you’ll get the ideas, tools, data, and stories you need in order raise or give money to support and develop nonprofit workers and leaders in your organization or your community. This unique podcast invites you into casual, provocative conversations with diverse leaders from foundations, nonprofits, academia, and capacity-building groups. We give you the big picture view, and we dig into specific issues, such as executive transitions, burnout, HR, fundraising for staff, how public policy impacts nonprofit workers, and more. Fund the People is the national organization that works to maximize investments in America's nonprofit workforce. It was founded in 2014 by Rusty Stahl with support from The Kresge Foundation, NYU Wagner, and Tides. We’ve launched the podcast in 2020, and have published over 100 episodes across 8 seasons. We launched a private version of the show on Patreon in 2025. It features community conversations, extended episodes, and a Patreon-only show where Rusty gives you the inside view while getting outside for a walk in New York’s Hudson Valley. Visit patreon.com/fundthepeople.
Episodes
Download PDF of episode transcript
What does it look like when a major foundation decides that a crisis calls for more than business as usual? Bold but smart!This episode offers amazing insights and inspiration from Brenda Solórzano, President and CEO of The California Endowment. Brenda shares about how philanthropy can respond when nonprofits face rising demand, shrinking resources, and mounting pressure. She discusses how...
Synopsis:
In this episode, you’ll learn about a current organizing effort to get institutional funders to ‘level up’ their giving in response to attacks on nonprofits and communities. Host Rusty Stahl speaks with Jodeen Olguín-Tayler (CHANGE Philanthropy) about the Level Up campaign and its three-part pledge, in which funders agree to (1) increase giving for at least two years; (2) move money quickly and equitably ...
Hi everybody – this is Rusty Stahl, CEO of Fund the People and host of your Fund the People Podcast. Season 10 starts next Wednesday, September 9th. New episodes will be available every Wednesday throughout the fall.
So I wanted to say a quick hello to get you ready!
As you probably know, Fund the People is the only national organization dedicated entirely to increasing investment in America's nonprofit workforce.
Our po...
As nonprofits navigate the aggressively hostile political and policy environment of the current federal administration, communications strategist Vanessa Wakeman argues that organizations need more than legal and financial preparedness.
In this special summer bonus episode, you’ll learn about “narrative resilience,” - a term and concept developed by Wakeman. Learn how nonprofits – and their funders – c...
Sarah Saadian of the National Council of Nonprofits explains how the Trump Administration policies are reshaping the nonprofit sector through a three-pronged effort to cut-off funding, silence organizations, and erode trust in nonprofits—and why these threats affect every nonprofit, regardless of mission. She shares practical ways nonprofit leaders can take action together to defend civil society, strengthen nonprofit advocac...
Vu Le is our guest for the Season Nine Finalé, which also serves as an installment of our ongoing Defend Nonprofits, Defend Democracy Series. Recorded with a live zoom audience during our spring webinar series, Vu discusses his burnout, funding instability, philanthropy’s power dynamics, and what it will take to strengthen nonprofits in an era of rising authoritarianism. Vu argues that nonprofits and funders must stop normali...
In this installment of our Defend Nonprofits Defend Democracy Series, you’ll get a deep dive into one of the least-discussed but most important democracy issues facing nonprofits and philanthropy today: attacks on ballot initiatives and direct democracy. Elizabeth DiLauro of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation joins Rusty Stahl to discuss how ballot measures have become critical tools for advancing health equity and why effort...
In this episode (S9:E16), you’ll hear compelling evidence that investing in nonprofit workers isn’t a distraction from program results—it actually supercharges impact!
Burnout is widespread in the nonprofit sector, particularly in social justice groups. But it doesn’t have to be. Our guests share their research, experience, and thinking, based on a cohort of Northern California nonprofits working with All Due...
What does it take to move from talking about racial equity to practicing it—inside philanthropy and across the nonprofit sector? In this episode, you’ll get visionary and pragmatic guidance on how funders and nonprofits can close the gap between intention and action. Rusty speaks with Kaci Patterson, Founder of Social Good Solutions and the Black Equity Collective. Kaci shares how her work brings funders and Black-led o...
In this episode, you'll get a clear, concise, and cogent argument for the unique value of the U.S. nonprofit workforce, with a specific focus on how nonprofit workers contribute to democratic participation and self-governance. Host Rusty Stahl discusses five ways this value manifests:
- Bringing the First Amendment to life
- Delivering services to citizens on behalf of government
- Advocating to government for the public interest
- Las...
In this episode, host Rusty Stahl makes the economic case for valuing the nonprofit workforce—nearly 13 million workers powering 10% of the U.S. private workforce. Drawing on fresh data, he reveals how nonprofits create jobs, stabilize communities during crises, and fuel broader economic growth. If policymakers and funders overlook this workforce, they’re missing one of the most significant economic forces in the countr...
“Nonprofit workers are an unspoken part of our social contract.”
Why do we need to explicitly talk about the value of the nonprofit workforce—especially to people already working within it?
In this opening episode of a three-part series, Rusty Stahl argues that the nonprofit workforce has long been overlooked in public policy, media narratives, and even within the sector itself. Drawing on insights following Foundat...
In this episode, you get a firsthand report from "Foundations on the Hill." Rusty discusses emerging federal threats and opportunities for our sector. From new legislation to executive action, he shares what’s at stake for the nonprofit workforce—and why we must engage now to shape the narrative.
Links to Information Discussed:
Challenges on the Horizon
...
In this episode, you’ll get a bold, provocative new idea for investing in the nonprofit workforce—and why it may be essential to the sector’s survival. We all know that restricted project support doesn't empower nonprofits to invest in their staff. But, we argue, general operating support isn't up to this task either. Staff Operating Support (SOS) offers a new way that funders and fundraisers can strategically, re...
Why do private foundations give away so little of their wealth each year—and how does that affect nonprofits and the people who work in them? Especially as the Trump Administration's War on Charity continues to rage?
Rusty Stahl talks with Glen Galaich, author of the new book Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short, about philanthropy’s culture of control, the limits of the 5% payout model, and what foundations could do di...
In this episode, you'll hear what nonprofits can learn from broader labor market trends—and how organizations can compete for talent in an era of increasing transparency. And you'll get a provocative perspective on how employers have been assessing the "market rate" for salaries, and how we should be thinking differently. Fund the People's Rusty Stahl speaks with Cary Sparrow, founder of WageScape, about how real-time labor m...
In this episode, you’ll get a clear-eyed look at the newest national data on nonprofit stability—and what it means for your organization, your funding strategy, your workforce or your grantees’ workforce.
While you're here, we invite you to register for Fund the People’s next webinar and live podcast recording on March 12, 2026. We'll explore Staff Operating Support (SOS), a new kind of funding to su...
Download our Edited Transcript for this episode.
Get the extended version of this and all episodes (and mucn more) by joining our Patreon community.
In this installment of our ongoing Defend Nonprofits, Defend Democracy Series, you’ll get practical, real-world examples of how funders and nonprofit leaders can engage in policy advocacy to defend values such as racial equity and democracy, when those values are under direct polit...
Download the Episode Transcript in .pdf format
In this episode of the Fund the People Podcast, you'll gain practical insights into how centering workers' perspectives -- and sharing power between employees and management -- can dramatically improve job quality in nonprofit organizations.
Host Rusty Stahl sits down with Brianna Rogers and Rob Hope of Rework The Bay to unpack a bold funding experiment supported by the James Irvine Foun...
In this episode of the Fund the People Podcast, listeners will gain practical insight into how philanthropy can evolve to meet today’s interconnected crises—and what funders can do differently right now to support justice, sustainability, and nonprofit workers. Host Rusty Stahl is joined by nationally recognized philanthropic leader, lawyer, and author Dimple Abichandani, whose new book, A New Era of Philanthropy: Ten P...
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