We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

There are 12 million kids in the U.S. with a mental health concern, and four out of five never get treatment — not because the care doesn't exist, but because it takes an average of 15 years for proven research to reach the providers families actually visit. Dr. Lisa Hunter Romanelli has spent her career closing that gap. As CEO of The REACH Institute — and its very first employee 19 years ag...

The traditional nonprofit playbook is full of defaults nobody voted for: merge only when you're desperate, expect your team to run on empty, soften your mission to stay safe, and treat funders like they're doing you a favor. At the We Are For Good Summit, four leaders sat down to throw all of that out. 🧠 Hosted by Stacy Huston, CEO of SixDegrees.org and a social impact strategist workin...

The Kiki and ballroom scene, built by Black and brown LGBTQ+ youth of color in New York City, has been creating art, designing fashion, performing, and building community for over 20 years. Meet Colby King 👋 He’s the founder of Kiki Arts Collaborative, an economic development platform turning ballroom artistry into sustainable careers in arts, culture, and media through creative mentorship, job t...

Dr. Sanjay Bindra is a practicing cardiologist who built a $2.5 million endowment at a zero-staff nonprofit in less than four years, with no campaigns and no urgency emails. Then he studied why it worked.  The result: the GIVE Study , a 12-month real-time look at how small nonprofits can achieve sustainable recurring giving through trust, behavioral design, and strong governance.  In this episode,...

An 85% graduation rate against a district average of 60% — at a second-chance school in the South Bronx where the primary healing tool isn't a worksheet or a clipboard. It's a professional recording studio. 🎙️ J.C. Hall is a licensed clinical social worker, a hip hop artist, and a 2024 David Prize winner (one of just five awarded across New York City). At Mott Haven Community High School...

"Crisis creates clarity, and philanthropic funding is the best risk capital we have." That's how Hala Hanna reads the moment we're in, and as Executive Director of MIT Solve, she has the data to back it up. MIT Solve has spent a decade brokering the relationship between companies, funders, and the early-stage innovators closing equity gaps in health, learning, climate, and econ...

As Co-Founder of Caring Across Generations and President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-jen Poo has spent decades working at the intersection of policy and culture — because she knows you can't change one without the other.  A MacArthur Fellow, Time 100 honoree, and author of The Age of Dignity , she's now launching a million-care-conversations campaign and a new productio...

Most nonprofits treat email like a megaphone. They show up loud when they need donations and go completely quiet in between. Katelyn Baughan has worked with UNHCR, Amnesty International, the Trevor Project, and the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and she has seen this pattern cost nonprofits thousands in unrealized donations. Her fix: stop thinking about campaigns and start building infrastruct...

Scott Cameron is a two-time Emmy Award-winning creative leader who has spent his career executive producing international adaptations of Sesame Street, bringing this iconic brand to audiences in 190 countries and 31 languages. He joins us for this special episode to talk about what 57 years of research-driven storytelling has taught him about how story actually changes people. 🌟 In this episode,...

Matt Oh was an engineer with a stable career and a 9-to-5 when a mission trip to India stopped him in his tracks. He saw something he couldn’t unsee — women and children spending 10 hours a day walking to collect dirty water. In 2015, he founded FOREFRONT Charity with a few college friends and one water well. Today, more than 100,000 people across India, Kenya, and East Africa have been impacted t...

This episode includes themes of combat trauma, mental health, and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. Meet Richard Casper 👋 Richard is a Marine Corps veteran, Purple Heart recipient, CNN Hero, and co-founder of CreatiVets , a nonprofit that helps wounded veterans heal from PTSD and TBI thro...

What does it actually mean to fund community power? Not a one-time grant, not a single big donor relationship, but real, sustained infrastructure for the leaders closest to the problems. Vincent Jones has spent three decades figuring that out. Meet Vincent Jones 👋 He is the CEO of Beyond Impact, formerly known as Tides Advocacy, a national 501(c)(4) intermediary that serves as fiscal sponsor, fun...

There is a growing gap in our world between hope and despair.  And storytelling might be the most powerful tool we have to fill it. Welcome to Stories That Fill the Hope Gap, a 10-part limited series created in partnership with Good is the New Cool and We Are For Good. Every Wednesday for the next 10 weeks, we are bringing you a changemaker who is using story to cut through noise, build connection...

Meet Christina Martin Kenny 👋 She is a career fundraiser and the founder of Guava Tree Strategies. She has been a fundraising team of one more times than she can count, and she literally wrote the handbook on surviving it: The Solo Fundraiser Survival Guide. In this Working Session, she is bringing the entire playbook to help you figure out what to prioritize, what to let go of, and how to actual...

Meet Amanda Green 👋 She is a journalist turned Communications Consultant with more than 20 years of newsroom and public relations experience, including 12 years in TV newsrooms. She is the founder of In Your Voice Media Works, where she helps cause-led organizations build their own internal newsrooms: the systems, the workflows, and the editorial instincts that turn scattered content into a susta...

Is philanthropy stuck in hypothesis mode? In science, there are two kinds of research: hypothesis-driven, where you predict the outcome before you run the experiment, and exploratory, where you map the landscape and stay open to what you find. The biggest breakthroughs almost always come from the second. Meet Casey Lardner 👋 She is a neuroscientist and the Executive Director of Genspace, the worl...

Meet Linsey Fuller and Marisol Pineda Conde 👋 Together, they have spent five years turning around an organization that started with one month of runway, rebuilding it from the inside out with new curriculum, new revenue streams, new systems, and a set of staff blessings that are rewriting what it looks like to actually live your values as a leader. The wellness stipend. The physical health screen...

Meet Dave Raley 👋 He is the founder and CEO of the Center for Sustainable Giving, author of The Rise of Sustainable Giving, and one of the most trusted voices in the recurring giving space. He has worked with thousands of nonprofit leaders to grow their monthly giving programs. In this Working Session, he is tackling two of the most overlooked opportunities in monthly giving: reducing churn and u...

Meet Nathan Cook 👋 He is the Chief Information and Technology Officer at Special Olympics International , where he is using technology to do something remarkable: help a movement that serves 5 million athletes across 172 countries finally operate as one. He is building a digital center of excellence, co-creating AI tools with athletes, and asking a question that should reshape how every nonprofit...

We're living in the loneliest moment in modern history. And at the same time, people have never been hungrier for hope, for joy, for meaningful connection.  Your volunteers are at the center of that tension. And if you're not treating people power as a strategy, you're leaving your mission's most powerful asset on the table. Recorded live at the We Are For Good Summit, this con...

Meet Pedro J. Rivera 👋 In 30 years at the intersection of law, philanthropy, and fundraising, he has launched three planned giving programs and raised $150 million for nonprofits and universities. In this Working Session, he's here to give you a clear entry point into planned giving, no matter where you're starting from. In this Working Session, you'll hear: How to talk about legac...

At 4am on April 3, 2025, Jennifer Rupp's phone wouldn't stop buzzing. 93% of Michigan Humanities ' budget. Gone overnight. What happened next is a story about crisis leadership, radical transparency, and why connection isn't a soft strategy. It's the only strategy. 🙏 In this episode, you'll hear: What Jennifer did in the first 24 hours after losing 93% of her budget,...

700 episodes felt like the kind of moment that deserved more than a LinkedIn post and a few dancing emojis. So we sat down to talk about what this journey has taught us about generosity, the stories that haven't left us, and what we're still learning. We're so grateful you're here. Come celebrate with us. 🩵 -Jon + Becky Episode Highlights: Two powerful stories of generosity we...

Meet Jeremy Bouman , Founder of RISE in Omaha 👋. Today, RISE operates in seven Nebraska prisons with a 90% graduate employment rate and a recidivism rate a third of the state average. And Jeremy has spent the last decade building a leadership team, a sabbatical policy, and a succession plan designed to outlast him. In this episode, he breaks down exactly how, including the internal leadership aca...

Kyle S. King started his nonprofit journey as a college junior, raised $100K, and never stopped. Eight books, a publishing company, a keynote career, and the Growth Alliance later — he's spent over a decade helping mission-driven organizations do the deeper work first: aligning leadership, tightening operations, and sharpening the stories that actually move donors to act. 💪 In this episode,...