The instinct in uncertain times is to keep your options open. Tanir Ami built her foundation's strategic plan on the opposite bet — and this conversation is about why it's working.

Carrie reflects on her conversation with STRIVE's Phil Weinberg and the difference between the resilience you feel and the resilience you build. Three takeaways on mindset, muscle, and the cost of apologizing for the work that holds everything up.

Phil Weinberg has spent fourteen years building STRIVE into one of the nation's most durable workforce development organizations, and he thinks the sector has been wrong about overhead all along. This week, he tells Carrie Fox why the infrastructure nonprofits are taught to apologize for is, in fact, the product.

In this week's reflection, Carrie draws out three lessons from her conversation with Amanda Kwong, director of the Public Health Communications Collaborative at the de Beaumont Foundation.

When the words that once built trust start closing doors instead, how do you keep communicating — and keep people listening? Amanda Kwong, director of the Public Health Communications Collaborative at the de Beaumont Foundation, joins Carrie to talk about the art of plain language, the politics of the words we choose, and what it looks like to lead a public health communications network of 40,000 through one of the most turbulent moments in recent memory.

Thirty days into a new CEO role, COVID arrived — and Tonia Wellons responded by building a ten-year plan. This week, Carrie Fox reflects on why that counterintuitive decision is still the right lesson for every leader navigating a world that keeps demanding reaction.

When the pandemic hit, Tonia Wellons had been CEO of the Greater Washington Community Foundation for thirty days — and instead of retreating to short-term thinking, she and her board committed to a ten-year plan. In this conversation with Carrie Fox, she explains why a fixed point on the horizon is most valuable precisely when everything else is in motion.

Carrie reflects on the findings that stuck with her from the 2026 Insights on Purpose™ report — including the tension between how hard leaders say it is and how much impact they still believe is possible. A new companion format this season, designed to help you hold onto what matters most from each conversation.

Leaders across nonprofits and foundations say the environment is getting tougher—yet most still believe they can increase impact over the next five years. In this episode, Carrie Fox, Stacy Palmer, and Brian Fox unpack that contradiction, and what it means for resilience, funding volatility, strategic planning, and the very real question of whether the sector can keep up with rising demand.

The work of holding communities together hasn’t changed—but this moment is asking more. In Season 12 of Mission Forward, Carrie Fox takes you behind the new research and into the decisions leaders are making to keep their missions moving.

Leaders want to bring more compassion into the culture of work, yet many wrestle with how to do it in a way that feels both authentic and respectful.

What if we made listening, not talking, our greatest act of leadership?

Dr. DeRionne Pollard joins Carrie to talk about transition, intention, and the experiences that shaped her path into national leadership. Her story offers a clear, moving look at how community, memory, and purpose shape the work we choose to do.

When the ground shifted under Baltimore’s nonprofit sector, the France-Merrick Foundation didn’t wait for clarity—they acted, launching a rapid-response fund that reimagines what philanthropy can do in a crisis.

Twenty-one years ago, when I started my first communications firm, a mentor offered a warning I’ll never forget: “Starting a firm focused on nonprofits is bound to fail. There won’t be enough work to sustain you.” ... Twenty-one years later, and we’re still here.

What if design isn’t what we see, but how we see? Designer Anne Kerns and host Carrie Fox uncover the quiet ways design teaches us to notice, to connect, and to build meaning that lasts.

Pete Wright has spent his career as the invisible force behind other people's voices, but when he steps in front of the microphone for his own show about legacy and death, he discovers something unexpected about courage and change. In this role-reversal conversation, Carrie sits down with her own producer to explore the collection of small choices that leads to a well-lived life.

Nine out of ten people can't tell you what a community foundation does—yet these institutions have been quietly holding communities together for over a century. Peter Panepento has spent the last decade trying to solve what might be the most counterintuitive problem in philanthropy: how do you build a national brand for 900 organizations that each insist on being completely different?

When a city loses its paper, what fills the silence? In Baltimore, Lisa Snowden and the Baltimore Beat have found a way to turn local news into the heartbeat of community life.

Everyone says journalism is broken. Michael Bolden thinks the story is more complicated—and that the next generation of reporters may be the ones to save it.