Let’s Hear It

Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy Takes on the Naysayers

Phil Buchanan, the President of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, has been helping foundations do their work better for almost two decades. But given that philanthropy is one step removed from the action, does that mean that Phil is helping people to help people who help people? What role do foundations and the organizations that support them play in improving people’s lives? And maybe most important, how can donors of all kinds figure out how to make sure their funding is as effective as possible?

In this episode of Let’s Hear It, Phil talks with Eric about how philanthropy can make a difference, and they discuss Phil’s new book, Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count. Eric notes that Phil, a former door-to-door fundraiser, has gone from playing the kazoo in the subway to conducting at Carnegie Hall. In their conversation after, Kirk chides Eric for asking tough questions, and Eric is classically defensive. What do you think? You can hear it all here at Let’s Hear It.

Kristen Grimm of Spitfire Strategies Tells All

For anyone who works in the field of nonprofit or foundation communications, the name Kristen Grimm looms large. She started as an intern at Fenton and within just a few years she was running the company, at age 28.

She launched Spitfire Strategies when she was in her early thirties, and in the intervening decade and a half she has built the organization into one of the most highly respected nonprofit communications firms in the country.

All the while, Kristen has managed to keep learning and she has maintained an infectious sense of humor. In this episode of Let’s Hear It, Kristen talks about how she inadvertently pranked Peter Jennings, why she travels around the country in a camper trailer every year, and she describes her plan for reducing “unforced errors” in communications strategy and planning. While’s she’s at it, she talks about how she keeps learning, how she thinks about management, who she turns to for advice, and so much more.

Jesse Salazar - Communications Network Chair Emeritus and so much more!

Jesse Salazar is one of the most thoughtful and intelligent people you will ever be lucky enough to meet. If Jesse sounds wise beyond his years, it’s not just his soothing baritone – it might also be a result of his incredibly interesting background.

Living in the only Hispanic household in his rural Pennsylvania community, he learned how different perspectives inform each other. As the youngest civil rights commissioner in Pennsylvania history, he was forced to address a dramatic surge of hate crimes against immigrants in the aftermath of 9/11. Since then, he has gone on to run a regional office for a US Senator, he ran communications for the Council on Foundations, he was chair of the Communications Network during a dynamic period of extraordinary growth, and now he’s a management consultant at an international firm. 

All of this has given Jesse a really nuanced understanding of just about everything.

In this interview with co-host Eric Brown, Jesse Salazar talks about politics, nonprofits, foundations, how to use communications to advance ideas and causes, the strategic use of office candy, and much more in another lively episode of Let’s Hear It!

Consultants in Bars Having Cocktails - Minna Jung

Minna Jung has had a varied and wonderful career in nonprofit and foundation communications. She has run communications at a large foundation (Packard), a national non-profit (Earth Justice), and she’s even a published author (a children’s book called William’s Ninth Life).

Minna talks about the pitfalls of professional ambition, the challenge of being creative while still getting the day-to-day work done, and even about how to facilitate a meeting.

This wide-ranging conversation between Minna and co-host Eric Brown takes place at the Lone Palm, a dive-ish bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, as Let’s Hear It moves out of the studio and into the streets.

Heinz Endowments President Grant Oliphant

If anyone knows how foundations can and should use communications, it’s Grant Oliphant. Grant, who was formerly communications director at the Heinz Endowments, now runs the organization as its president. As a former board chair of the Communications Network, the national organization of foundation and nonprofit communications professionals, Grant may be one of the country’s great champions for our field. But Grant isn’t satisfied. As Grant tells Eric in this episode of Let’s Hear It, “Many of the issues we care about are losing or at least deeply embattled.” Grant says that foundations have a “sacred responsibility” to change the narrative in the field and in the broader culture. If that’s not a challenge, we don’t know what is. In this very candid conversation, Grant and Eric discuss how foundation communications are advancing social change, and how they’re falling short.

 

Amrit Dhillon of the Race Card Project

How do we communicate in ways that are authentic, emotional, and evocative?

 

At a time when we are bombarded by reports, books, blogs (okay, and podcasts), the Race Card Project at the Aspen Institute invites people to tell their own stories about race and identity in a whopping six words. To date, they have collected over a quarter million six-word stories. As it turns out, six words can reduce you to tears or laughter at least as well as a white paper or powerpoint presentation.

 

Amrit Dhillon helps run the project with former NPR host Michelle Norris and she talks to Eric about how they are helping people around the world to tell their own stories about this challenging and potentially divisive topic with empathy and understanding.

 

Learn more about the Race Card Project at: https://www.facebook.com/TheRaceCardProject

 

 

Hewlett Foundation President Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer is the President of the Hewlett Foundation and he has stood out for being candid, opinionated, and seemingly unafraid of what the rest of the philanthropy world thinks of him. Lucky for him that he’s an incredibly nice guy, and lucky for us that he’s endlessly entertaining.

In Eric Brown’s freewheeling conversation with Larry, the Hewlett president holds forth on trying to get the rights to Can’t Buy Me Love for the foundation’s hold music, how he’s trying to make democracy great again through the foundation’s Madison Initiative, and why his mother wishes he was still dean of the Stanford Law School. And much, much more. Just listen – you’ll be glad you did.