Mission Forward with Carrie Fox

TruStory FM

Mission Forward with Carrie Fox Hosted by social impact expert and B Corp leader Carrie Fox, the Mission Forward podcast explores what it really takes to move a mission forward in today’s society. With her signature blend of heart and head, Carrie sits down with some of the world’s most-admired purpose driven leaders to dig into issues you’re experiencing right now: from how to navigate difficult issues, how to lead through uncertainty and how to tackle tough conversations with courage and care. With guests ranging from Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, purpose-driven CEOs, storytelling and fundraising experts, and people in the driver’s seat of social change, this show will inspire and activate you as a mission-moving leader, too. * About the Host (https://www.missionforward.us/about-carrie) * Listen to Past Episodes (https://www.missionforward.us/episodes)

  1. How to Build a Legacy That Outlasts You with Tanir Ami

    Jun 11

    How to Build a Legacy That Outlasts You with Tanir Ami

    You probably know the dream where you need to run and your legs won't obey. Carrie names that dream halfway through her conversation with Tanir Ami this week, and from there it's hard to let the idea go. What Tanir describes, and what the whole nonprofit and foundation sector seems to be describing right now, is the waking version of it. In 2020, leadership looked like a million-dollar check hand-walked to a closed UPS office. Decisiveness was the whole job. The uncertainty was acute but legible: a virus, a curve, a set of immediate needs. You moved, or people died. Today's uncertainty is different. Tanir calls it "quieter." The threats are diffuse, the timelines unclear, the systems shifting in ways that might not surface for months or years. The instinct to charge forward survives. The sense of which way to charge does not. Tanir, in the middle of all this, did the opposite of what the field expected. She narrowed. While other leaders were being told that strategic planning had become too hard to attempt, she and her team spent the year writing one. Not a sprawling, hedge-everything plan. The CARESTAR Foundation's new strategic plan turns on a single sentence: eliminate racial disparities in emergency medical services care across California. The 2026 Insights on Purpose research that anchors this season found that most leaders are making major changes to grantmaking or fundraising, and most are doing it without a strategic plan at all. The reasoning is easy to follow: when the ground keeps moving, why commit to a destination? Tanir's answer runs the other way. When the ground keeps moving, the destination is the only stable thing on the horizon. The path will change. The collaborators will undoubtedly change. The question of what you are trying to alter about the world only gets sharper under increasing pressure. When Tanir shared this new, tighter focus publicly, nobody backed away. They moved toward her. Committing publicly to one specific thing made her easier to find, and the plan turned into an invitation.  In this week’s Research Brief, Matt Price points the same direction: health-focused nonprofits report the lowest optimism of any subsector in the study, and they are the ones who most need a funder willing to cover work that is, as he puts it, "sometimes under attack." Carrie's dream, the one where you run and stay in place, marks one texture of leadership in 2026. This conversation points to another. Choose one thing, say it out loud, and build the plan around it. The legs start moving again. The dream hasn't ended. You've just stopped trying to outrun it. (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (01:18) - Introducing Tanir Ami (04:42) - Why is Racial Justice so important to Pre-Hospital Care? (05:54) - Reflections on Leadership Today... versus 2020 (13:35) - Reimagining Creativity and Collaboration (16:22) - The Strategic Plan (23:05) - The Ten-Year Retrospective (27:55) - Research Briefs with Matt Price

    35 min
  2. Resilience as a Muscle and a Mindset with Phil Weinberg + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    May 21

    Resilience as a Muscle and a Mindset with Phil Weinberg + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    Most organizations talk about resilience as if it's a single thing — a quality you either have or you don't, summoned in a crisis and admired after the fact. Phil Weinberg, president and CEO of STRIVE, draws a sharper line. There's the resilience of the person, and there's the resilience of the institution, and conflating them is how good organizations end up brittle. One is mindset. The other is muscle. Carrie sits with that distinction this week, and with two more ideas from her conversation with Phil that are worth carrying into the work: the quiet damage of the nonprofit starvation cycle, and what it actually looks like to lead with consistency when every signal in the environment is asking you to react. Links & Notes Listen to Resilience as a Muscle and a Mindset with Phil WeinbergSTRIVEMission Partners' 2026 Insights on Purpose™ Report (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward

    5 min
  3. Resilience as a Muscle and a Mindset with Phil Weinberg

    May 7

    Resilience as a Muscle and a Mindset with Phil Weinberg

    Every generation inherits a story about how people move up in the world. Go to college, the story goes. Get the degree. Climb. It's a story that has shaped policy and philanthropy for three generations running, and for tens of millions of Americans, the story does not describe reality. What remains is a gap. Not a talent gap, as this week's guest is careful to distinguish, but an opportunity gap. Two populations standing on opposite sides of a chasm, motivated people looking for a path, and employers who cannot find workers. This chasm is not bridged by ambition alone. It has to be built. Phil Weinberg has spent fourteen years at STRIVE building exactly that kind of bridge, and what makes his account worth hearing is the architecture underneath it. This week, Carrie Fox talks with Weinberg about what it takes to grow a nonprofit through three successive crises without losing the thread, why he draws a sharp line between individual resilience and the organizational kind, and how the conventional wisdom American philanthropy has held about nonprofit overhead may have had it backwards the whole time. It's a conversation about consistency as a form of leadership, about the unglamorous decisions that compound into durable institutions, and about what happens when an organization stops apologizing for the infrastructure that makes its mission possible. This week also marks the debut of a new recurring segment on Mission Forward: Research Briefs, a short conversation tucked into the end of each episode for the next three months, featuring Mission Partners' Researcher in Residence Matt Price. In each brief, Matt connects the themes of the week's conversation to what the latest data is telling us about the field. This first installment puts Phil Weinberg's reflections in context with new Gallup data on how American workers are feeling about the job market — and what the numbers reveal about resilience, leadership, and the gap between struggling and thriving. Stay tuned at the end of the episode. Links & Notes STRIVESTRIVE's Story (40-year history, founded in East Harlem, 1984)STRIVE Programs (Career Path, Future Leaders, Fresh Start)STRIVE Network (directly operated sites in Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, and New York, plus affiliate partners)Phil Weinberg on LinkedInMission Partners' 2026 Insights on Purpose™ ReportMatt Price, Researcher in Residence at Mission PartnersGallup: U.S. Worker Thriving Declines as Job Market Pessimism Grows (March 2026 release)BDO's Ninth Annual Nonprofit Standards Benchmarking Report (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (03:09) - Leading through Turbulence (06:32) - Building Resilience Across the Team (12:42) - The Non-Profit Business (21:34) - Demand versus Capacity (30:49) - Research Briefs

    38 min
  4. How to Respond in Times of Uncertainty with Amanda Kwong + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    Apr 16

    How to Respond in Times of Uncertainty with Amanda Kwong + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    In this week's reflection, Carrie draws out three lessons from her conversation with Amanda Kwong, director of the Public Health Communications Collaborative. The throughline: when your goal is building trust, the words you choose — and the ones you're willing to let go of — matter more than most of us realize. It's a short but worth-your-time listen before you head into your week. (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (00:40) - Changing Words Does Not Mean Changing Values (01:36) - Plain Language is NOT Dumbing Down (02:33) - Trust is Cumulative

    4 min
  5. How to Respond in Times of Uncertainty with Amanda Kwong

    Apr 2

    How to Respond in Times of Uncertainty with Amanda Kwong

    There's a version of this conversation that could feel heavy — a public health communications director navigating a moment when national guidance has gone quiet, trust in federal institutions is eroding, and the very words her organization was built around have become politically radioactive. That version exists. But it's not the one Amanda Kwong, from the Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC), shows up to tell this week. In this conversation, Amanda shares the philosophy that powers PHCC, the initiative Amanda directs, which has grown to a community of 40,000 health communicators across the country. Together, Carrie and Amanda examine why the communicators doing the most important work right now aren't the ones broadcasting the loudest. In fact, they are the ones listening the most carefully. This episode provides a framework to evaluate whether the language you're using is still doing what you think it's doing. Words shift. Culture moves. A phrase that once built credibility can quietly become a barrier, and the communicators who don't notice are the ones who lose their audience without ever knowing why. As Amanda reminds us, the organizations that will come out of this moment with their credibility intact are the ones that kept asking the harder questions. They didn’t continue asking “what do we say?” but instead asked, “What does this actually mean to the person we're trying to reach?” (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (02:21) - Introducing PHCC (13:33) - Making the Complex Approachable (18:08) - Resources found at PublicHealthCollaborative.org (22:13) - Dancing Apolitically (31:19) - Finding the Good, Celebrating the Hope

    35 min
  6. Leading Beyond Resilience with Tonia Wellons + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    Mar 19

    Leading Beyond Resilience with Tonia Wellons + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    Tonia Wellons became president and CEO of the Greater Washington Community Foundation thirty days before COVID-19 shut down the world — and her first major move was to build a ten-year strategic framework. Not because the future was predictable. Because it wasn't. A plan, she understood, is not a forecast. It is a fixed point, and fixed points are most valuable when everything else is in motion. Six years later, 100% of her staff report clarity on the organization's mission; six years earlier, that number was 39%. The lesson Carrie draws from Tonia's leadership runs deeper than planning: resilience is not a reserve you stockpile — it lives in the relationships you build, in the honest conversations between funders and partners that no grant agreement can manufacture. And holding steady, Tonia proves, is not the same as standing still. In this week's reflection, Carrie revisits three lessons from her conversation with Tonia that every leader navigating sustained uncertainty needs to hear. Learn more about the Greater Washington Community Foundation. (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward

    4 min
  7. Leading Beyond Resilience with Tonia Wellons

    Mar 5

    Leading Beyond Resilience with Tonia Wellons

    In a recent staff survey at the Greater Washington Community Foundation, 100 percent of employees said they were clear on the organization's mission and vision. Six years ago, that number was 39 percent. That gap is what happens when an organization decides, at the height of a pandemic, to stop thinking in three-year cycles and commit to a ten-year framework instead. Tonia Wellons was thirty days into her role as president and CEO when COVID hit — canceling a 600-person gala, sending staff home, building a crisis response from scratch. And then, as the uncertainty stretched on, she and her board planned further out, not less. Because the plan isn't a prediction. It's a fixed point. And fixed points are most valuable when everything else is moving. What's moving right now is almost everything. In 2020, the crisis had a shape — federal resources flowing outward, community energy concentrating around visible needs. Now the disruption comes from a different direction. What Wellons calls "dispersed energy" has replaced collective momentum: people still care, but without a center of gravity, that care is very hard to organize — and very hard to sustain. Nonprofit leaders are resilient by training. But resilience and endurance are different capacities. Over ten consecutive years of crisis, the sector has been asked to sustain both, and the cumulative cost is real. Boards that aren't actively asking how to lighten that load are going to lose people — not in a single wave, but in quiet rolling exits. Some of those, Wellons is careful to note, are the right response. A thoughtful departure or sabbatical isn't failure. It's a sector populated by human beings. The same honesty shapes how she talks about the foundation-nonprofit relationship. The power dynamic is real, she says. But the way through it is relational, not structural — funders explaining why they stopped doing something, nonprofits naming the blind spots that foundations can't see from where they sit. The alignment the sector keeps reaching for will arrive person to person, or not at all. Last fiscal year, the Greater Washington Community Foundation granted approximately $70 million — a record — while donor giving and national philanthropic support both reached new highs. None of it happened because the environment got easier. It happened because the foundation had a fixed point, and a leader who understood that holding steady and standing still are not the same thing. Links & Notes Read the Insights on Purpose™ ReportThe Greater Washington Community Foundation (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (01:22) - Introducing Tonia Wellons and the Greater Washington Community Foundation (08:12) - Making Room for Planning (13:52) - On Resilience (28:04) - A Spotlight on the Good

    34 min
  8. Insights on Purpose + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    Feb 19

    Insights on Purpose + Part 2: Key Takeaways

    Something we've learned about good conversations is that they don't end when the recording stops. The best ones keep working on you — in the car, in the shower, in the middle of a meeting about something else entirely. That's the idea behind this episode, and behind a new format we're trying this season. After each full-length interview, Carrie is coming back with a shorter solo reflection — a chance to sit with the conversation, pull out what matters most, and share what's still turning in her mind. Think of it as a companion piece. The interview gives you the full picture. This gives you the underlines. And there's a lot worth underlining from the season 12 premiere. In that episode, Carrie sat down with Stacy Palmer of the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Brian Fox of Mission Partners to dig into the 2026 Insights on Purpose™ report, a national study drawing on more than 400 nonprofit and foundation leaders. The findings are striking, and Carrie walks through the ones she can't stop thinking about. What comes through most clearly in this reflection is something Stacy and Brian both named in the original conversation: that reports like this only matter if they spark real dialogue. Carrie closes by offering two questions for leaders to carry into their week.  Where do you need fresh creativity? And...Who do you need to invite into the conversation? They sound simple. They're not. And that's the point. If you haven't listened to the full interview with Stacy Palmer and Brian Fox, start there. Then come back to this one. The two episodes are designed to work together — the conversation and the reflection, side by side. (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward

    10 min
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About

Mission Forward with Carrie Fox Hosted by social impact expert and B Corp leader Carrie Fox, the Mission Forward podcast explores what it really takes to move a mission forward in today’s society. With her signature blend of heart and head, Carrie sits down with some of the world’s most-admired purpose driven leaders to dig into issues you’re experiencing right now: from how to navigate difficult issues, how to lead through uncertainty and how to tackle tough conversations with courage and care. With guests ranging from Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, purpose-driven CEOs, storytelling and fundraising experts, and people in the driver’s seat of social change, this show will inspire and activate you as a mission-moving leader, too. * About the Host (https://www.missionforward.us/about-carrie) * Listen to Past Episodes (https://www.missionforward.us/episodes)

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