Break Fake Rules: Change Big Giving For Good

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 famously served as the “prosecutor” where he put philanthropy on trial in a 2011 mock trial before thousands of foundation leaders.
Gara takes on the fake rule that people inside philanthropy are not supposed to criticize it, arguing that philanthropy should release its obsession with ego and that foundations should treat their resources as a public trust. Along the way, he digs into investing in power building, questions philanthropy’s instinct to be overly cautious, and calls on foundation leaders to use their influence to support communities, even when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.
💡 Gara LaMarche: If you can't speak out about authoritarianism or attacks on the very communities that you're purporting to protect, if not now, when?
Learn more about Gara LaMarche and his work advancing philanthropy, democracy, human rights, and social justice. Watch Gara put philanthropy on trial.
Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.
Learn about the Stupski Foundation.
Co-Hosts: Eric Brown & Glen Galaich

Guest: Gara LaMarche
Executive Producer: Claire Callahan
Production Team: Podfly
Video Editor: Edith Belmont
Graphic Design: Middle MGMT

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 the reparations movement, Aria Florant, co-founder and executive director of Liberation Ventures. They discuss repair, narrative power, and what it takes to build a truly multiracial democracy. As the U.S. gears up to celebrate Juneteenth and its 250th anniversary, Aria challenges the fake rule that supporting reparations is politically impossible, unprecedented, or simply too hard. Instead, she invites us to imagine a country where reparations lay the foundation for enduring generational change.
Aria shares how Liberation Ventures is investing in heart-and-mind change, with a Beloved Repair campaign to move reparations from the margins to the mainstream. At the center of it all is a bold, hopeful question: What becomes possible when reparations stop feeling radical and become common sense?
💡Aria Florant: “We should be contending for the hearts and minds of everyone. This is not just about Black people, and all people can and should be doing this work, and in particular, doing it in their own communities with their own people, because we know that peer-to-peer organizing is one of the most effective ways to change culture.”
Learn more about Liberation Ventures’work to support Black-led efforts for repair, racial healing, and reparations. Check out their Beloved Repair campaign.
Learn about the Stupski Foundation.
Co-Hosts: Glen Galaich & Malia Becton Consuegra

Guest: Aria Florant
Executive Producer: Claire Callahan
Production Team: Podfly
Video Editing: Edith Belmont
Graphic Design: Middle MGMT

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 conversation. With his signature humor and candor, Vu challenges the fake rule that serious work has to be humorless, and pushes the sector to look at what conservative funders have built, what progressive funders keep avoiding, and what it would take to actually fund the future they say they want.
Together, Glen and Vu dig into the power dynamics that keep nonprofits begging for crumbs, the limits of donor-centered philanthropy, and the need to make transformative, generational investments to support our democracy today, rather than waiting for it to crumble around us. At the center of it all is Vu’s challenge: philanthropy cannot fight for democracy, equity, justice, and a livable future while staying detached from power. We must harness our imagination and give all our resources like our future depends on it.
💡Vu Le - “We say foundations are not effective, philanthropy is not effective. That's not true. Progressive-leaning philanthropy is not effective because conservative funders have been extremely effective for like four decades now, and we're still here scrambling to do stuff to catch up."
Buy your copy of Vu Le’s book, Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy, and read Vu’s latest musings on NonprofitAf.com.
Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.
Learn about the Stupski Foundation.
Host: Glen Galaich

Guest: Vu Le
Executive Producer: Claire Callahan
Production Team: Podfly

Graphic Design: Middle MGMT

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-winning cognitive framework Asset-Framing®. Together, they explore why Asset-Framing is far more than a communications strategy—and how it fundamentally shifts how the brain understands people, problems, and possibilities.
Trabian challenges the fake rule that fear is the strongest motivator, making clear that fear may trigger an initial reaction, but it cannot move us toward justice, equity, or lasting change. From there, he reframes what philanthropy can become when it stops treating communities as problems to solve and starts investing in people as the protagonists of their own lives.
💡Trabian Shorters: When you think about folks just based on what is wrong with them, you won't even consider the other half of their life and the types of options that are available. There's more going on in your life than what's wrong with you. So if you can understand it for yourself, then you can understand it for other people.
Learn more about Trabian Shorters and his work with BMe Community, where he is helping leaders across philanthropy, journalism, and social impact change how people and communities are understood, funded, and supported.
Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.
Learn about the Stupski Foundation.
Co-Hosts: Eric Brown & Glen Galaich

Guest: Trabian Shorters
Executive Producer: Claire Callahan
Production Team: Podfly
Graphic Design: Middle MGMT

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 foundations think they are showing up and how nonprofits are experiencing this moment.
Together, they dig into the findings in CEP’s latest report, State of Nonprofits 2026, including rising deficits, CEO burnout, possible mergers, foundation caution, and the risks facing the people who rely on nonprofit services. Elisha challenges one of philanthropy’s most familiar fake rules: that every urgent problem needs a long strategy process before funders can take action. Sometimes the data is already clear. Sometimes the need is immediate. And sometimes the bridge from foundation thinking to nonprofit reality is not another plan, but the courage to move resources now.
💡Elisha Smith Arrillaga: I believe the most important fake rule to break is that we need a strategy to solve every problem...sometimes we get caught up in the need to have a plan. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily require a plan, but requires some action.
Learn more about The Center for Effective Philanthropy and its research, including the State of Nonprofits 2026 and A Sector in Crisis: How U.S. Nonprofits and Foundations Are Responding to Threats
Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.
Learn about the Stupski Foundation.
Co-Hosts: Eric Brown & Glen Galaich

Guest: Elisha Smith Arrillaga, Ph.D.
Executive Producer: Claire Callahan
Production Team: Podfly
Graphic Design: Middle MGMT