The $500 Million Bet on America's Future | Dr. Carmen Rojas

Every foundation in America operates on a two-way bargain with the public that rarely gets named out loud: accept significant tax advantages, and deploy those resources in service of the public good. Most foundations show you one side of that equation—the grantmaking—and keep the other side, the endowment, largely invisible. Dr. Carmen Rojas thinks that needs to change. 

On this episode of BETTER GOOD, Scott M. Curran (https://www.scottmcurran.com/) is joined by Dr. Carmen Rojas, president and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, for a conversation about what foundations owe the public, why MCF made the decision to expand its grantmaking from roughly $30 million to $130 million in a single year, and what it actually looks like to lead a major institution with courage when the stakes are high. Carmen traces her path from growing up in a Nicaraguan immigrant household in San Francisco to studying democratic fragility at UC Berkeley, building the Workers Lab to support low-wage worker organizing, and now leading one of the country's most consequential foundations. She explains why she believes philanthropy's greatest risk right now is caution, why she treats MCF as a financial institution first, and why she calls on foundations, nonprofits, and everyday people alike to find their own form of courage in action, not just words. This episode explores themes of philanthropic accountability, democratic values, economic justice, and power-building in communities historically excluded from it.

Guest: Dr. Carmen Rojas

Host: Scott M. Curran

Executive Producers: Aaron Shulman & Kieron Banerji

Production by Echo Studios

Check out our Podcast: https://www.linktr.ee/scottmcurran

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:22 Early Memories of Doing Good

00:05:43 The Systems That Made Success Possible

00:09:22 What MCF Does and Why It Matters