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

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.

Together, Glen and Nwamaka explore philanthropy’s complicated relationship with the F word: failure. Nwamaka makes the case that failure is already happening across the sector, but when foundations fail in secret, they miss the chance to learn and help others avoid the same mistakes. She also pushes philanthropy to think beyond what feels legally convenient and toward what is morally necessary in this moment, including moving capital beyond traditional 501(c)(3) structures. The conversation invites funders to lower the wall between investment and grantmaking, question their own risk tolerance, and consider what becomes possible when failure is treated not as a source of shame but as a powerful tool for change.

💡Nwamaka Agbo: If you run a really good experiment, chances are every once in a while that experiment is going to fail, and the failure actually gives you more information, more indication for how to improve your work going forward. And so if we can share our failures with our colleagues in philanthropy, more widely, more broadly, then all of us don't have to fail as frequently, and we don't have to fail alone.

Learn more about the Kataly Foundation and how they are challenging philanthropy to move capital with greater accountability, transparency, and courage.

Check out their failure series.

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

Learn about the Stupski Foundation.

Host: Glen Galaich

Guest: Nwamaka Agbo | Kataly Foundation

Executive Producer: Claire Callahan

Production Team: Podfly

Graphic Design: Middle MGMT