Break Fake Rules: Change Big Giving For Good

What becomes possible when philanthropy invests in the well-being of the people doing the work? In this episode, co-hosts Jamie Allison, Executive Director of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, and Glen Galaich sit down with Jennifer Haas, President of the Levi Strauss Foundation and founder of the Women’s Leadership and Wellbeing Award, to examine the connection between philanthropic impact and no...

How long is too long to lead a foundation? In this episode, Glen sits down with Kate Levin Markel, President of the McGregor Fund, to break a fake rule philanthropy rarely talks about: once foundation leaders get the job, there is very little incentive for them to leave. Kate explains why she made herself a promise to step aside after roughly a decade. As she demonstrates, staying too long can lea...

Break Fake Rules listeners, enjoy this special feed swap from our partners at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), who invited our co-hosts, Glen Galaich and Jamie Allison, to guest star on their Giving Done Right podcast. Follow Giving Done Right here or wherever you get podcasts. New episodes of Break Fake Rules return next week. In this episode, co-hosts Phil Buchanan and Elisha Smith A...

Why are people willing to give up power in exchange for the promise of protection? Recorded live with Northern California Grantmakers at SFJAZZ, host Jamie Allison invited Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, renowned historian and scholar, and Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, to discuss their new books, Dr. Kendi’s Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age , and Glen’s CONTROL: Why Big Givi...

When does protecting an endowment get in the way of the mission? In this episode, co-hosts Glen Galaich and Dr. Carmen Rojas, President and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, unpack the foundation’s bold decision to double its grantmaking over the next decade. They get into what fiduciary duty should really mean and why a mission has to show up in the dollars a foundation invests, not only th...

What will it take for philanthropy to unlock the extraordinary potential of 501(c)(4)s? In this episode, co-hosts Glen Galaich and Ralph Lewin, Executive Director of the Peter E. Haas Jr. Family Fund, challenge the fake rules telling philanthropy to stay neutral, avoid risk, stick to funding 501(c)(3)s, and keep political work at arm’s length. They’re joined by Leah Greenberg, Co-Founder and Co-Ex...

Philanthropy needs a reboot. Youth are nearly non-existent in the rooms where decisions are made about where charitable dollars flow. So what changes when we bring in young people to help direct these dollars? In this episode, co-hosts, Stupski Foundation CEO Glen Galaich and Malila Becton-Consuegra, Stupski’s Bay Area Postsecondary Success Program Officer, welcome two young leaders in philanthrop...

What could we change if we broke out of boom-and-bust election-cycle funding to support long-term generational transformation? In this episode, Glen and co-host Ari Datta, Stupski Foundation’s Food Justice Program Manager, sit down with Emily Lee, executive director and co-founder of Seed the Vote Action, for a conversation about voter organizing, political power, and the fake rules that keep phil...

What changes when we embrace impermanence instead of trying to live forever? In this episode, Glen Galaich sits down with Santhosh Ramdoss, president and CEO of Gary Community Ventures, for a conversation about impermanence and legacy. Guided by Gary’s commitment to move all its assets into the community by 2035, Santhosh debunks the fake rule that philanthropic impact depends on institutional per...

What happens when philanthropy’s sharpest critique comes from inside the sector itself? In this episode, Stupski Foundation CEO Glen Galaich and co-host Eric Brown sit down with Gara LaMarche - longtime philanthropic leader, democracy advocate, and one of the OG fake rule breakers. Gara worked with George Soros at Open Society Institute, and Chuck Feeney at The Atlantic Philanthropies, and famousl...

Fake rules tell us funding reparations is too complicated, too controversial, or too distant. So what will it take for us to see that repair is a responsibility we all carry? In this episode, Glen Galaich and co-host Malia Becton-Consuegra, Stupski Foundation’s Bay Area post-secondary success program officer (who also leads reparations work at the foundation), sit down with a visionary leader in t...

There’s a dirty word philanthropy doesn’t like to talk about - politics . But does staying above the political fray actually prevent us from supporting the communities and issues we claim to care about? In this live audience episode, Glen Galaich sits down with Vu Le, author of Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy and the voice behind Nonprofit AF, for a funny, urgent, and table-flipping conver...

Philanthropy has a mindset problem, and it’s harming the very communities it claims to support. But what if philanthropy shifted its perspectives to see people through their aspirations, contributions, and power instead of their challenges? Co-hosts Glen Galaich and Eric Brown sit down with Trabian Shorters, a leading social entrepreneur, founder of BMe Community, and developer of the award-winnin...

Nonprofit leaders are ringing alarm bells, but foundations are still deciding whether this moment is different enough to act. In this episode, Stupski Foundation CEO, Glen Galaich, and co-host Eric Brown sit down with Elisha Smith Arrillaga, Ph. D., vice president of research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, to discuss what CEP’s recent research reveals about the widening gap between how...

What will it take for us to stop treating failure like a private embarrassment and start seeing it as a way to learn, grow, and take better risks? In this episode, Stupski Foundation CEO Glen Galaich sits down with Nwamaka Agbo, CEO of the Kataly Foundation, for a candid conversation about the fake rules that keep philanthropy playing it safe when communities need funders to move with more courage...

What happens when philanthropy stops treating women and girls as a side issue and starts seeing them as a powerful lens through which we can better understand the major fights for justice, democracy, safety, and human dignity? In this live episode, recorded at The Giving List Women “Doing It Differently” Summit in Santa Barbara, Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, and co-host Gwyn Lurie,...

What happens when journalism stops pretending objectivity is the same thing as truth telling? In this episode, Glen Galaich and co-host Dr. Carmen Rojas take Break Fake Rules to Kansas City for another conversation from Common Thread, the national event series from the Marguerite Casey Foundation bringing people together around the issues shaping working-class life in America. They welcome Faiz Sh...

What happens when philanthropy stops assuming young people are not ready to lead and starts trusting them when it matters most? In this episode, co-hosts Glen Galaich and Ralph Lewin, Executive Director of the Peter E. Haas Jr. Family Fund, bust open a fake rule that assumes young people do not know enough to help shape the future of our democracy. Together, they reflect on their own first experie...

What happens when one of the most dreaded days on the calendar gets reimagined as a celebration of collective care? In this episode, Stupski Foundation CEO Glen Galaich and co-host Jamie Allison, executive director of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, use Tax Day to open up a bigger conversation about public responsibility, private wealth, and what taxes make possible. Jamie makes a joyful case for...

What happens when we stop designing philanthropy around preservation, control, and donor comfort, and start asking how to put more capital, trust, and collective action to work? In this episode, Glen Galaich speaks with Renee Kaplan, CEO of Forward Global, in a conversation recorded at the Forward Global Summit in Whistler. They challenge the fake rules that keep philanthropy cautious and exclusiv...

What happens when we stop chasing individual freedom and start asking what it would mean to be free together? In this episode, Stupski Foundation CEO Glen Galaich sits down with Mia Birdsong, founder and executive director of Next River, where she is creating the cultural conditions necessary for a truly free world to emerge. Together, they break the fake rules of individualism, redefine what free...

We’re excited to share a special feed swap this week from our friends, Eric Brown and Kirk Brown, on the Let’s Hear It podcast! In this episode, you’ll get to hear directly from Glen Galaich and frequent Break Fake Rules co-host and Let’s Hear It host, Eric Brown, as they talk about Glen’s newly released book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short. Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Gi...

This week, the co-hosts of Break Fake Rules are taking control of the show to talk behind Glen Galaich’s back about his new book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short , out today! Eric Brown, principal of Brown Bridge Strategies and co-host of Let’s Hear It , locks Glen out of the Break Fake Rules studio to bring you a conversation with all of your favorite co-hosts: Jamie Allison, executive direct...

What happens when philanthropy treats this moment like a true crisis and local organizers refuse to let cruelty become normal? In this episode, Glen Galaich is joined by co-host Dr. Carmen Rojas, President and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, for a conversation filmed at the first of a series of events called Common Thread, a new initiative designed to bring people together through conversa...

What happens when philanthropy stops treating the people doing the work as an unnecessary expense and starts funding nonprofit partners like it actually wants them to win? In this episode, Stupski Foundation CEO Glen Galaich and returning co-host Jamie Allison, Executive Director of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, react to a Chronicle of Philanthropy piece on the high cost of low nonprofit salarie...