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 nonprofit worker wellness.

Jennifer’s own experiment offers a different model. Through the Women’s Leadership and Wellbeing Award, women social justice leaders receive $15,000 tax-free personal checks with no proposal, reporting requirement, or prescribed definition of what well-being should look like. That choice opens a much larger conversation about trust, proximity, and philanthropy’s attachment to control. The question running through the episode is deceptively simple: if philanthropy is serious about helping organizations win, are its own practices designed to make that possible?

💡 Jennifer Haas: “You're almost throwing money away if you give a grant to an organization and you don't consider the well-being of the staff and the team.”

💡 Jamie Allison: “You can't contribute toward building a healthy community through unhealthy organizations. If the people inside of an organization are not doing well, that's going to take away from the community impact.”

Learn more about Jennifer Haas and the Women’s Leadership and Wellbeing Award through the Levi Strauss Foundation.

Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.

Learn about the Stupski Foundation.

Co-Hosts: Jamie Allison & Glen Galaich

Guest: Jennifer Haas

Executive Producer: Claire Callahan

Production Team: Podfly

Video Editing: Edith Belmont

Graphic Design: Middle MGMT

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 lead to stagnation and disconnection from community, while new leadership can expand our view of what is possible.

Kate also shares how McGregor responded when its grant partners faced an increasingly uncertain political environment by doubling their payout from roughly 5% to 10%. For Kate, both decisions come back to the same question: are foundations willing to evolve when the communities they serve need something different from them?

💡Kate Levin Markel: “I think the longer many of us are in these roles, the more disconnected we become from the community we are serving.”

Learn about the McGregor Fund and how it is evolving its grantmaking and leadership to stay responsive to the communities it serves.

Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.

Learn about the Stupski Foundation.

Hosts: Glen Galaich

Guest: Kate Levin Markel

Executive Producer: Claire Callahan

Production Team: Podfly

Video Editing: Edith Belmont

Graphic Design: Middle MGMT

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 Arrillaga, CEP's vice president of Research, discuss some of philanthropy's oldest tensions: who should decide how charitable dollars get spent and how to balance short-term needs with the long view? Their guests, Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, and Jamie Allison, executive director of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, are usually the ones asking the questions, as frequent co-hosts on Glen’s podcast, Break Fake Rules.

Glen makes the case from his new book, “CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short”, that too much charitable wealth sits parked in private equity and hedge fund accounts rather than moving out to the communities that need it, and that donors should treat public stewardship, not private control, as their guiding value. Jamie pushes back on the idea that this is a binary choice between spending down and staying perpetual, describing how the Walter & Elise Haas Fund has worked to increase payout and shift toward larger, unrestricted grants without abandoning a long time horizon. Together, they debate what foundations with large endowments owe to this moment of crisis for nonprofits, why "responsiveness" matters more than any single spending formula, and what foundations might learn from everyday donors.

Order your copy of Glen’s book, CONTROL: Why Big Giving Falls Short.