Marc Moorghen of Lever for Change – the Elvis of the Nonprofit World – Transcript

Kirk: [00:00:00] Welcome

Eric: to

Kirk: Let’s Hear It.

Eric: Let’s Hear It is a podcast for and about the field of foundation and non-profit communications, produced by its two co-hosts, Eric Brown and Kirk Brown. No relation. Well said, Eric. I’m Kirk. And I’m Eric. Let’s Hear It is sponsored by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, which enhances quality of life by championing the arts, promoting early childhood literacy, and supporting research to cure chronic disease, online at krfoundation.org. We are also sponsored by The Prebys Foundation, a foundation creating an inclusive, equitable, and dynamic future for all San Diegans. Check out their amazingly good podcast, Stop and Talk, hosted by Grant Oliphant and Crystal Page. You can find them at stopandtalkpodcast.com. You can find Let’s Hear

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Eric: Let’s get onto the

Kirk: [00:01:00] show. Welcome in. It’s so much better when you do it. It’s so much better. So we get a little glimpse, by the way, of the world through Eric Brown’s eyes in this interview we’re about to hear. So you know that I’m not 6’7″, right? You’re like 6’11”. That’s what I was like. You’re so big. This is the world where Eric is just looking at the world and it’s like this enormous shadow just covers the sun. You’re like Hagrid. I know. It’s true. That’s the image that comes to mind. That’s the image that comes to mind.

Eric: You’re a clean-shaven Hagrid. If Hagrid had visited a tonsorial parlor, he would be Kirk Brown. Marc Moorghen has

Kirk: said he’s made it finally because after his long, illustrious career, he’s finally on Let’s Hear It, and he’s finally made it, and that was maybe the kindest thing that he’s ever said about Let’s Hear [00:02:00] It

Eric: is coming on and saying — and I felt the draft of smoke blowing up my skirt. Well,

Kirk: it’s effective though. We’re on your side. If you come on here and you start saying nice things about Let’s Hear It, you’ve won us over. So yes, welcome in, everybody. You’ve found us in this, our whatever season it is, which we’ve stopped — Season

Eric: eight, I think we’ve stopped

Kirk: keeping — we’ve lost track. We don’t keep track. We don’t come here anymore. I think we’re season eight. I have to say, this was a welcome conversation, speaking of welcoming in. I really appreciated what we are about to hear about this very interesting and new model that Marc has been part of. So set this up because this actually feels like the kind of stuff we want to be hearing more and more about as we find our way through these incredibly difficult times.

Eric: Yes. I had a fabulous conversation with my old pal and dare I say crony, Marc Moorghen, who is the vice president of marketing and communications at Lever [00:03:00] for Change, which is a very interesting organization. It was started by the MacArthur Foundation, and what they do is they connect donors with great nonprofit organizations, usually through these great big open calls — Mm-hmm — and so-called funding challenges. Think of like the XPRIZE. So that’s what they do, and they don’t solicit grants. They make these open calls. So it is a very, I guess you could say, democratic form of fundraising. And Marc is a phenomenally — he’s just a great guy, a great human being in every way. I dearly love him. His empathy, his pathos and bathos and Athos and Porthos — he wears it on his sleeve, and you get a sense how important he has been to that organization and frankly to all of the organizations he has worked with. He’s just a

Eric: [00:04:00] terrific guy. He’s really, really smart. He’s a learner. He’s a sponge. He’s a connector. He’s a really fun person to listen to, and as you listen to his story, I think he is everything that is best about this field and about how we do our work. And so you learn not just about Lever for Change but about how to be an effective

Kirk: person in this field.

Kirk: Yeah, you describe him as one of the nicest, finest people you ever met when you conclude the interview, and that comes across in spades as you’re talking. And it struck me as you’re talking about that, that this is the quality of sensibility, the quality of person that is so important, so necessary, so valuable to have behind these incredibly important field-building initiatives. So this is Marc Moorghen, the vice president for marketing and communications from Lever for Change on Let’s Hear It. Let’s listen, and we’ll come back.

Eric: Welcome to Let’s Hear It. My guest today is my longtime pal and fellow philanthropy communications troublemaker, none other [00:05:00] than Marc Moorghen. Marc is vice president of marketing and communications at Lever for Change, a nonprofit founded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to connect donors with bold solutions to some of the world’s most enduring challenges. And Marc has also just joined the board of the Communications Network, so congratulations for that. Marc Moorghen, you’re here. Welcome.

Marc Moorghen: I am so happy to be here, Eric. I feel like I finally made it. I’ve made it. I’m on Let’s Hear It. I am so glad to be here with you. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Eric: Marc, you made it a very long time ago. It’s just taken you this long to catch up.

Marc Moorghen: Well, being a friend of the two Browns. I just want to say hi to you and Kirk, who I’ve not met yet.

Eric: You’ve never met Kirk?

Marc Moorghen: I have never met Kirk.

Eric: You haven’t lived. He’s huge. People don’t know that Kirk is like 6’7″. Really? He’s a massive personage, and the two of us, when we stand next to each other, we look like Penn and Teller.

Marc Moorghen: [00:06:00] Oh my God, I have to meet him.

Eric: Yeah, you have to meet him. One of these days maybe we’ll do a live show somewhere. That’d be cool. Let’s just dig into this great stuff. We have known each other for quite a long time, and you were head of communications at the Hilton Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, at the time. How did you get from wherever you got your absolutely spectacular accent to the Hilton Foundation?

Marc Moorghen: Ooh, that is such a big question. It takes a long time to answer the question, so I’m going to try and give you the condensed version, okay?

Eric: Whatever.

Marc Moorghen: Cut me off when you need to. I was born in Croydon, which is to the south of London, to an English Belgian mother and a Mauritian father, so from Mauritius, where the dodo bird is from. I was born in South London, lived there for about seven or eight years, and then moved to Belgium to be closer to my grandmother. Was there for four years, then France for five years, back [00:07:00] to Belgium for a couple of years, off to the UK for university. Started working in Brussels, Belgium. Was on a path to be a civil servant in the European Union, and went to visit my father’s island of Mauritius and discovered a whole world outside of Europe. Eight months later, I ended up moving to Japan, which is a connection I know that you and I share, and lived there for three years. And while I was there, I met Jonna, who would become my wife, and came to the US with Jonna. Ended up in LA, which was not part of the master plan at all. But ended up in LA and was freelancing for a while, and then I came across the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which was founded by the founder of Hilton Hotels, and thought it would be the perfect fit for many reasons. I ended up joining the Hilton Foundation and stayed there for 12 and a half years. So that’s the short, condensed version.

Eric: And what was your first job at the Hilton [00:08:00] Foundation?

Marc Moorghen: I was hired to help manage the Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which at the time when I started, which was 20 years ago, was about a million dollars for an outstanding nonprofit of the year. So we branded it as the Nobel of the nonprofit world.

Eric: Of course.

Marc Moorghen: So I did that for six years, and at this time, the foundation was growing. So Barron Hilton, who was the son of Conrad Hilton, sold his hotel shares, and it became a much larger organization. So the foundation was growing, the team was growing, our experience was evolving, and I really wanted to move more back into the communications role. And the board, in its infinite wisdom at that time, decided it’d probably be good to have a communications department. It was a competitive process. They set up a communications department. I got the role and helped as the inaugural communications director.

Eric: We have that in common because I was the first communications employee of the Hewlett Foundation. What was it like for you [00:09:00] to move over from the prize into communications, and what was it that you were learning about communications and in particular foundation communications, which is the weirdest kind of communications you can do almost, that was interesting, and how did — what were those early days like?

Marc Moorghen: It was actually fairly straightforward to move from one department to the other because the prize was de facto the external

Eric: Got it.

Marc Moorghen: communications component of the foundation. That was it. It was the only external-facing piece. So we ran the website, we did the events. I had contacts with media, et cetera. So it felt like a very natural progression, and I knew exactly what we could and should do as a next step. So it felt like a very natural transition. At the time, I remember I reached out to a lot of folks in the communications sector, including you.

Eric: What’d I do?

Marc Moorghen: I met you at the Communications Network conference where you were speaking in a Scottish accent. I’ll never forget. And tried to figure out how to do this because 20 years ago, [00:11:00] industrial and commercial reasons, and really hacking it for good. And I thought, “That’s something that I want to do with my life.” And finding research like Fred Mann’s papers and the Communications Network and people like you who were engaging in this in the early days really made me realize that so much was possible and there was so much potential, and I could see this pathway. And so that’s really what I brought to the foundation. The Hilton Foundation hadn’t had a communications function at that point. They had the de facto prize piece, but it wasn’t really strategic communications as we think about it now. So we were kind of late to the game, but I think what it allowed me to do too was leapfrog the process and get in at a point where things were really taking off, and there was a good way of building these things, and it was a great time. It was so exciting to build that at the time.

Eric: Well, it’s interesting. I love hearing this story because you are as good a networker in all of the best ways as I’ve ever met. [00:12:00] It’s partly because you’re just a nice person. You are interested in others. It feels to me like you get energized by crowds. You’re an extrovert, I feel. Is that correct?

Marc Moorghen: Yes.

Eric: Okay, good. I figured as much. But wherever I go, you’re like Elvis. You’re everywhere. Wherever I go, there you are, engaging people and talking to them and learning from them. Any advice that you have? I’m going way off of whatever strategy I had for this conversation because —

Marc Moorghen: Good.

Eric: Okay. That’s how we do this here. Do you have any advice for people who are getting into this field or kind of mid-career for how to learn from others and how to engage in ways that allow you to grow? Because you have done it as well as anyone I’ve ever met.

Marc Moorghen: Thank you. And I love getting off the beaten path because that’s where the interesting stuff happens. That’s right. And I get compared to Elvis. How cool is that? The Elvis of the nonprofit world. I’ll take that. So yes, I do have things to share because [00:13:00] that’s essentially how I started out. I was reading a lot. I was really curious about things. I’d never really considered myself to be a networker, so I just want to establish that fact. 20 years ago, 25 years ago, whatever, when I was working in the beginning, I thought networking was a thing that you did, the stereotype of it.

Eric: And it seems like people kind of sneer a little bit. “Oh, he’s a networker.”

Marc Moorghen: Yeah, because it seems transactional sometimes, right? And that’s the antithesis of who I am and what I wanted to do. So to answer your question, when I was working in this field, I was just genuinely interested in what people were doing, and I was so inspired by stuff that I gradually came out of my shell. I would meet people. I’d meet them again, and then I’d meet a few more people. And that’s really the secret to knowing this many people, I think — over time I’ve met a lot of people, and I always try to be open to new connections. I talk to everybody I meet. I’m always so curious about people’s stories. They have amazing, fascinating stories when you listen to them. When we last [00:14:00] met, I heard more about your stories — Oh — Great case in point, where people really open up to you.

Eric: It’s possible I made some of those up. I’m sorry.

Marc Moorghen: That’s okay. Just let me believe. Please continue. But I think if you listen to people — and I think this is probably a good piece of advice. I hesitate to hand out advice, but this is one that I think is solid. It’s listen to what people are saying and really hear what they’re trying to communicate. And if you do, people open up. So I think I’ve just genuinely always been curious. I was always the little kid who would ask my mom, “Why? Why? Why? Why this? Why that?” And I’d always try to understand. And I was a very bookish kid, and I read a lot, and so I’ve just always been curious about how things work and what makes people tick, and how people do some things or why they do them, or to what end. And I think that’s really helped me just meet a lot of people and learn so much. So the networking is valuable because I do believe there’s real power in knowing people and having a large group of people that you can reach out [00:15:00] to and ask questions. So for instance, I went to you and asked questions about how to set up a communications department and things like that. Very practical. But also, I remember our mutual friend Daniel Silverman saying that he had a brain trust, right? And I really loved that idea too, the kitchen cabinet, whatever you want to call it, where if you have a problem that you can’t quite figure out yourself, you have this group of people that you can reach out to. That’s fantastic. And I’ve always been extroverted and been able to talk to people, but I was a little bit shy too, a little bit reserved in the beginning. But I think realizing that people genuinely wanted to help and paying that forward has always been my ethos. So that’s a long-winded answer to say I think if you listen to people and you’re genuinely interested in learning from them, those doors just open.

Eric: I also think that it helps, especially in your case, to have such a wide variety of experiences, having lived in Europe, having lived in Asia. Can you talk just a little bit about how you are gathering all of these [00:16:00] experiences and putting them into your practice as a communications professional now?

Marc Moorghen: That’s a really interesting question. So I will say that I started out — I don’t really talk about this a lot. I started out — it sounds very glamorous, but my background is far from glamorous, right? I started out as a kid in a working class area of London. Very working class, and a very heavily immigrant area of South London. Very, I would say, economically less well off and culturally vibrant area of London. My world was very small initially. Yes, I met people from different places, and it was natural to hear reggae music and eat Indian food and all kinds of things. But it was gradually over time that I accumulated a lot of knowledge about how the world works, and also because I’m curious. So the love of traveling is more a curiosity about the world and [00:18:00] of a crazy answer, but my whole life has been about change. I’ve always been on the move and in different situations, and I think all of those experiences come to bear. It’s a little bit like the movie Slumdog Millionaire — uh-huh — where he has all these experiences and ends up on a game show and has all the answers because he just happened to have experienced certain things. There’s a little bit of that, too. I feel like I’ve learned a lot along the way, either because I’ve sought it out and read and researched and studied it, or because I’ve learned things from being around people and being in communities. If you talk about access to safe water, which was one of the topics at Hilton, one of the issue areas we focused on, going out into communities and actually seeing what water scarcity looks like or contaminated water, things like that, it helps you understand these issues in a way that you wouldn’t behind a desk necessarily.

Eric: Well, we’re going to take a very short break, and we’re going to talk after the break about how you’re taking all those experiences and all of this stuff that you’ve learned over time and applying it to your work at Lever for Change. So we’re going to be right back [00:19:00] after this break with Marc Moorghen. You’re listening to Let’s Hear It, a podcast about foundation and nonprofit communications hosted by Eric Brown and Kirk Brown. If you’re enjoying this episode, you may just be a rule breaker. Check out season three of Break Fake Rules with Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, as he chats with inspiring leaders in philanthropy, government, media, and more about breaking the fake rules that don’t work so that we can build a future that does. Check them out wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to the show. Welcome back. I’m talking today with my pal and fellow troublemaker, Marc Moorghen. Tell me about Lever for Change. It’s such an interesting model for philanthropy. And it feels to me like you’re having the opportunity to apply all of these things you’ve learned over the years. So let’s talk a little bit about that. What’s Lever for Change and what are you doing?

Marc Moorghen: Lever for Change is a nonprofit designed to [00:22:00] communications, and running a small business, and being a think tank, and all these different things that I’d had a hand in. So again, it was the accumulation of experiences that led me to this role, and I really grew with the organization. Because when I started, we were aiming for $1 billion in funding, which we surpassed really quickly, and it feels like I’ve been strapped to a rocket ship ever since. It’s just been an incredible adventure and it’s grown exponentially.

Eric: And so let’s get into the nitty-gritty a little bit. How are you identifying donors, and then how are you taking those donors and bringing them together and funding organizations?

Marc Moorghen: So part of our team, our partnerships team, goes out and meets with donors all the time, either to fund organizations that we have in our network that we’ve identified through open calls. So we have about 500 organizations in our network right now that we’ve vetted and de-risked, is the term that we use. So it’s a pipeline, a deal flow of ideas. And so we’re always shopping those around, trying to get more funding for [00:23:00] organizations. We’re also trying to build that pipeline, and that’s through the open call mechanism. So we pitch thematic ideas to funders around the country and around the world. People also come to us. So originally, Lever for Change was founded with the idea that it would appeal more to what we call ultra high net worth individuals, people who have $30 million or more in assets. Rich people. Yes. Basically.

Eric: Yes.

Marc Moorghen: Love —

Eric: I love the net worth part. You know —

Marc Moorghen: I know your love of jargon —

Eric: Gross worth will be fine.

Marc Moorghen: Ballpark. Ballpark worth. Wealthy. Rich. Yes. So that was the idea. That was the plan. And really, it’s turned out to be something much different, much more open. So it really appealed to all kinds of different funders, whether they’re established foundations, new kinds of foundations or philanthropic vehicles, LLCs, anonymous donors, individuals who are just starting out maybe, people who are just starting out a foundation and want to build some infrastructure through this and a pipeline, [00:24:00] or people who don’t want to build a foundation. Also financial intermediaries. All kinds, really, and I think that’s been the biggest surprise so far, that it really appealed to lots of different types of funders.

Eric: I would also think that it’s a massive communications opportunity because there are so many different ways that you can engage people. As you say, some people want to remain anonymous. Some people are focused on a particular issue. Some people are open to suggestion or opportunities. Oh, and by the way, you’re in shipping and receiving because you’re raising the money and you’re helping to direct the money. So that feels like the world is your oyster communications-wise. Can you talk about how you think about communications through all of these sets of opportunities?

Marc Moorghen: Yes. It started out in one place. So when I joined, I thought about it very much in terms of campaigns, right? Different clients were running different campaigns for different issues and for different reasons with different layers and levels of visibility. Some of them wanted attention, some of them didn’t want [00:28:00] call, which we just announced a few weeks or a couple of months ago for $250 million to 80-plus organizations around the world for women’s health. And we did the same thing, that same kind of approach. So really it’s not really about us, it’s more about these organizations and what they can do with it. So it’s inspiring more support. So it’s ripple effects really, networks of networks.

Eric: Do you have a favorite grantee organization? Maybe even a little grant that could give us a real sense of the possibilities for nonprofit organizations with Lever for Change?

Marc Moorghen: With Lever for Change, there have been so many grantees that I really cannot pick favorites. I have so many favorites, so it would take a very long time.

Eric: Oh, give me a favorite. It’s okay. We will forgive you.

Marc Moorghen: Okay. I will give an example from a previous life. I will give an example from when I was at the Hilton Foundation, and we gave out a media grant to KCRW, which was the local NPR affiliate.

Eric: Right. Know it well.

Marc Moorghen: [00:29:00] Yes, it’s a very famous station mainly because of the music, right?

Eric: Yep. Morning Becomes Eclectic was their morning music show.

Marc Moorghen: Exactly. The cool kids, as I always like to call them. They really appealed to people all over the place and had a very loyal fan base, right? Not exactly the outlet that you would think about in connection with the Hilton Foundation at that time because we were focused on some very serious issues that usually would be on C-SPAN or maybe on PBS in a news show or something. But we had some money left at the end of the year, and I really made the case for being able to support this group because I thought they want to tell stories. So they had come to us saying, “We want to tell stories that matter to our community. Beyond music and all of that cool stuff, we also want to talk about impact.” And we were thinking, well, we talk about impact, but we really want to connect with different audiences and really spread the word about what’s going on and help people understand these very complex issues in a simple way. And so it was a [00:30:00] perfect opportunity, and it was great to be able to channel some of that funding to something that we didn’t do. At the time, we did no media funding. So it was a very radically different thing to do at that time for that kind of organization, to that kind of organization for that kind of purpose. So that’s my favorite example.

Eric: So now it feels to me like your kind of philanthropy is relatively new. I mean, the prize concept isn’t brand new, but it’s relatively recent. And the work that you’re doing to bring together donors and grant recipients or grant applicants, especially in this world of the citadel that you have to chuck a rock over with a note attached to it and hope that somebody in the foundation’s going to read it — these black boxes. So you’re coming up with new ways, in a sense, to do philanthropy. And communications around that kind of philanthropy. Also, you’ve referenced MacKenzie Scott. That is a new version of philanthropy, for sure. Can you give me a sense of your own [00:31:00] take on how our field is changing and how communications fits into that?

Marc Moorghen: I love that question because I feel that we are really at an inflection point, and you and I have been talking about this for, what, 20 years or something — yeah — hoping that this moment would come. And I really do think we are there. I am really seeing philanthropy change, and I think that a lot of us who have been working in this sector for a long time have a lot of jokes about how slow-moving it is, moving at the speed of philanthropy and all that. But I do think that a lot of different things have come to bear that have precipitated great changes. So MacKenzie Scott is one example, and just what an incredible example of trying to cede control. I think that’s really what it’s about. But also seeing how external pressures, whether it’s funding cuts or technology, all of these things seem to be happening at once, and it’s had a really destabilizing force. So I don’t want to minimize that part of it either because I think [00:35:00] well. Now I’m seeing more of that taking hold, and I think that’s actually very promising for the future of giving.

Eric: Well, you do need to know Marc Moorghen because he is one of the nicest, finest human beings I’ve ever met, and he is a font of information. You have learned so much and taught so much. I’m just so grateful for you for coming on the show. I’m grateful for you for being my friend, and for all the work that you do. Thanks, Marc.

Marc Moorghen: Thank you, Eric. I’m so honored that I was on your show. I finally made it. I’m always glad to spend time with you, and thank you so much for the chat.

Eric: Well, the pleasure is mine. Marc Moorghen, thank you again.

Marc Moorghen: Thank you, Eric.

Kirk: And we’re back. So it’s true that Marc does have a spectacular accent, but even more importantly, Marc has an incredible story. And I have to say, one of the things that struck me as he was describing his background — working-class area of London, kind of in this very small economically limited world, but also immigrant, it’s [00:36:00] very dynamic. But just this notion of not fitting in. And I was thinking to myself, is that a quality that maybe effective communicators share — that we empathize with, we know what it means to not fit in, and actually that gives us this second sight, if you will. It’s like we can see the world in a different way. And I’m not prepared to write a dissertation about that, I’m not prepared to do any research, but it just struck me. I was like, “Marc, you’ve managed your way through this world of very different pieces and yet you found a way to make it all fit together. And is that part of your story, that you actually know what it is to not fit in, and so then you get that yearning to help others fit in and become part of something bigger than themselves?” I don’t know. It just made me think about that when you were having that part of your conversation.

Eric: Well, the fact that he has lived so many places and done so many things, A, it’s a really good argument for diversity in the broadest sense — Mm — which is that you have the opportunity to see and learn from [00:37:00] and benefit from lots of different things, and he certainly has. And his own sense of curiosity, of course, drives so much of his work, and that curiosity happens when you go to a new place and you observe things. He talked about that, and we have that in common that we both lived in Japan. Mm-hmm. You go to a place and you don’t understand anything. And this is — I was there before Google Translate. So I couldn’t — I just had to guess or surmise or whatever. And it gives you a sense of — that curiosity makes you want to learn more, and as you learn more, you learn more. And I think that is what his background is and what his experience has been, and I think

Kirk: it helps him in his work. So can I make a huge plug that anybody who’s listening to this, just hit pause right now. Go to Amazon Books. If you don’t own it, go get your hands on PR!: A Social History of Spin by Stuart Ewen. So have you ever read [00:39:00] communications campaigns over a century have shaped most of what we understand to be true in the United States of America, and then that has global consequence. And so, Marc, I’m so glad — In fact, Eric, you know how I love giving you assignments, so I want you to bring Marc back. Yes. I want you to bring Marc back. I want to get Stuart Ewen on this podcast, and I want just a discussion about that book and books like it. Mm-hmm. Because this understanding that our field has so much impact, but also history, and then we’re trying to bring that forward and apply it to the work we’re doing today — that little call-out, it was just a little beat. It actually got Marc mobilized to work in this field, and well, then that book is doing everything it needs to be doing. But books like that are transformative, so I just want to make a pitch for a book like that. And have you read something like that in your career, Eric, that was like, “Oh my God, this helps me understand what I’m doing with this whole field and what’s going on with all this stuff?”

Eric: Huh. No.

Kirk: Yeah.

Eric: [00:40:00] Actually, so — The Smart Chart — I had never heard of the book. Okay. I had never heard of the book. Yeah. Well, the Smart Chart, for sure — Right — from Spitfire Strategies, was a huge — many things have been influential to me. Yeah. But there has never been the book that spun my head around. So here’s a crazy thing. All right, I don’t know if this is ethical, but I’m going to go for it anyway. It’s great. If someone leaves us a legitimate Apple Podcast review — so they can’t lie and say the show is good if they don’t think it’s good. But if it’s reasonably close to how they actually feel — Sure — I will personally buy you a copy of PR!: A Social History of Spin. That’s great. And I will send it to you. So get in contact with us, say, “Here’s my Apple Podcast review,” take a screenshot, send it to me. That’s unethical, I think, but I think it’s still a good idea, so there, I meant it. But no, I had never heard of the book. I think that we most certainly need more of them. Mm-hmm. [00:41:00] There’s a lot of good material out there. It’s getting better. Yeah. That’s for sure. Anne Christiano’s book — Mm. Yeah — that just came out is a good example. Yeah. And let’s keep that going. So if there’s any other folks with good books out there, you should write it. I’m not going to do that though, because — But we’ll read it. But we’ll read it — I’m too lazy. But I will read it, and if somebody gives us an Apple Podcast review, then I will buy them a copy and send it to them.

Kirk: So Marc spends 12 years at the Hilton Foundation — I almost called it Hewitt. The Hilton Foundation.

Eric: No, not the Hilton.

Kirk: And they’re giving a $1 million gift, kind of the Nobel Prize of nonprofits. They’re giving a million-dollar gift each year to whatever nonprofit emerges, and I thought that was so interesting. And how challenging would it be to navigate the communications part of that which Marc was working with, but also the selection part of that? And what’s your perspective? Because that’s a transformative gift, and yet at the same [00:42:00] time I’ve also had the experience of, like, the worst number in philanthropy is a million dollars. Because it feels like you should be able to do everything with it, but you actually realize you can’t. It’s like a start — Right — but it’s not the end-all, be-all. But what do you think about that notion of what it takes to navigate the work of providing a $1 million gift each year to a nonprofit through a prize and a competitive selection process?

Eric: The prize issue can be challenging in that you don’t want organizations to spend a ton of time and money and resources for something that they may not get. Mm-hmm. And therefore — and I think they’ve gotten good at this, at trying to mitigate the time and the expense on the grant seeker who may not get the grant. But that’s always one of the things about prizes that you have to be careful about, which is you’ve got to make it easy for them to apply. So that’s a big deal. And then there’s a [00:43:00] second prize, a third prize, and there’s a lot of information about these organizations that then gets shared that allows organizations that didn’t get funded to get funded elsewhere. So it becomes a repository of information about organizations that puts them in line for other funding. So those are the bits about that. About whether a million dollars is the number or not, certainly the grants that Lever for Change is doing now are well in excess of a million dollars. Right. So it’s transformative amounts of money.

Kirk: Well, it made me wonder for the Hilton Foundation process if they were actually able to disclose kind of the second place candidates, because I was thinking that would be — Yeah — a super effective way to organize your grant making. Just fund all the second place folks. You know what I mean? Because the folks that are emerging, they all have effective programs, too. And it made me think, too, about the MacKenzie Scott model [00:44:00] and just being like, “I’m going to make the transaction costs for you as an organization as low as possible. I’m going to hold all those expenses on my side, and we’re going to do the due diligence without you even knowing. And then once we decide you’re a recipient, you’re just going to get a check, and we’re going to say, ‘We trust what’s going on.'” I wonder how much philanthropy going forward is going to orient to that approach, because it just seems like it’s so transformative and so effective for people.

Eric: Well, I would say that if I could have one thing left in my career —

Kirk: It would be to have MacKenzie Scott on this show — Yeah, that would be incredible —

Eric: to talk about how she does this. Mm-hmm. Because it is a model for others, but there is not enough. We just don’t know nearly enough about how she makes her decisions, about what her process is. It’s quite opaque. And like I say, the outcomes are phenomenal, and the way she is getting money into the field in [00:45:00] all sorts of places is extraordinary. I mean, it is such a gift to our nonprofit community, and yet there’s so much we don’t know, and that it could be replicated. And process does matter, and I don’t believe she is just chucking darts against a board. So that would be my dream in life. It will never happen. But —

Kirk: But wouldn’t that be amazing — Yeah — that we have this kind of glimpse into that kind of thinking? And whereas this is what Marc is doing at Lever for Change, is giving a glimpse into how this decision-making goes — Mm-hmm — with regard to these large scale, really transformative gifts. So that’s part of it. And it would be great just to get more of that from others, and particularly MacKenzie Scott. So if you’re out there listening, I’m sure MacKenzie Scott’s a —

Kirk: An avid listener —

Eric: can’t wait for a new [00:46:00] episode to drop and just hangs on every day, like just refreshes the website. But that would be

Kirk: my hope. One of the things I appreciated in Marc’s self-reflection, he said he never considered himself a networker. But over time, he’s met lots of people, and he’s really honed this capacity to listen to what other people are saying and hear what they have to say. And I thought that was such a great synopsis for what it would take to succeed in the role that he’s been thrust in, which he obviously sought out, but to be part of this process with Lever for Change. And I also love how, as impactful as it’s been — is it true that in six years they’ve influenced over $2.5 billion, as in boy, billion dollars in funding? That their scale has been that big. Their target was a billion initially, and now they’ve surpassed that. It’s $2.5 billion. 2.5 billion.

Eric: That’s a lot of money.

Kirk: That’s a lot of money, and yet Marc’s self-reflection on it is that it really sounds [00:47:00] like a small startup enterprise. Recently we were talking about what it looks like for foundations to take risks. This, I think, is a risk that was taken, and it just seems from the standpoint, hopefully from the standpoint of what MacArthur was trying to do, this has been an enormous success. I mean, is that your — and you need people like Marc — Yeah — to sit at the center of it to try to create the outcomes that you’re looking to create.

Eric: Well, and the influencing of the funding — one of the most important components of being able to influence that funding is communications. Yes. And if any foundation person out there thinks that communications doesn’t matter, you’re just going to give the money to your grantee and good things will happen, you’re wrong.

Kirk: Right.

Eric: Because leverage — hey, leverage, it’s in their name. Leverage means being able to get more power out of a certain amount of energy that you put in. Mm-hmm. And that’s what a lever is. It allows you to lift a piano [00:49:00] and it’s why that organization is as successful as it is, because they do understand communications, and they use it as effectively as possible. So, God bless. Mazel tov.

Kirk: And you can’t anticipate all the positive directions that’s going to go. And I was thinking, Marc having that capacity to be a high-trust person, to navigate conversations, think strategically. Just on the donor side, think about how powerful that is, because they’re networking with donors all the time. They got started and had a certain thought about how the donor piece would work. All of a sudden they realize, wait a minute, the kinds of donors that might be attracted to what we’re doing, this is way more diffuse than we had thought. It’s going to be high net worth individuals. It’s going to be anonymous donors. “I’m not even going to do a foundation, but I have the resources to be part of something. Maybe I’m just part of a financing mechanism. We’re looking for a good place to locate resources.” And opening the door to those conversations creates all of those [00:50:00] opportunities for that outcome to be created, and I don’t know if on day one they would have thought they were going to have such broad appeal. My guess is maybe not. They probably thought they were going to work with a certain set of a type of foundation or something like that, and suddenly they realized, oh no, we can do so much more, let alone the hundreds of organizations that are in their network that are pitching ideas all the time. So this idea of what communications is, that it sits in that honest willingness to — and it’s funny, I can’t remember if it was you or Marc that talked about, so many foundations sit with kind of an invisible do not disturb — Right, yeah — plaque on the door. Right? Don’t bother. But this is instead a whole conversation about no, no, no, bring us your ideas. We want to be transparent. And then we want to broaden the awareness of what’s possible to as many donors as we can. I just love that whole process around the transaction and how communications was a crucial element of all of it every step along the way.

Eric: [00:51:00] Yeah. I totally agree. And I think just in philanthropy in general, if all of the outcomes that you achieved were things that you had predicted or planned for, you’re probably not trying hard enough, or you’re not open to the kind of change that can occur when you’re not prescribing what it has to be. And some of the best ideas and the best outcomes are things you could not have predicted — Yeah — and should not have predicted, and that’s where the real great stuff happens, and you have to be able to make that possible.

Kirk: I loved when you guys were talking about change in philanthropy, but philanthropy moving at the speed of philanthropy. Mm. And I was trying to figure out, what is the speed of philanthropy? Is that glacial? Is it seismic?

Eric: I wish it was the speed of glacial melt.

Kirk: Right, exactly. And yet at the same [00:53:00] Marc Moorghen, thank you so much for the work you’re doing. I would love to meet you in person sometime. You’ll find that I’m not Hagrid. You’re massive, Marc. You are so much bigger than people. I also don’t have your spectacular accent, and I’m definitely not one of the nicest, finest people that Eric has ever met, but

Eric: Oh, you’re in the top. You’re up there. You’re in the top — I’m in a cohort — at 1/10 of 1%. I’m in a certain

Kirk: segment. I’m in a certain segment. But seriously, Lever for Change, oh my gosh. $2.5 billion so far in six years. That’s going to grow many times over, and Marc and your colleagues, you’re making it happen. So Eric, this is such a great conversation. I’m so glad we got to be part of it. And Marc, I just want to say, keep it going. Thank you so much for the work you’re doing, and I just hope nothing but success ahead for Lever for Change. Okay, everybody, that’s it for this episode. Please let us know if you have any thoughts about what you heard [00:54:00] today or people we should have on this show, and that definitely includes yourself. And we’d like to thank John Allee, the tuneful and inspiring composer of our theme music.

Eric: Our sponsor,

Kirk: the Lumina Foundation. And please check out Lumina’s terrific podcast, Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Talent, and you can find that at luminafoundation.org. We

Eric: certainly thank today’s guest, and of course, all of you.

Kirk: And most importantly, thank you, Mr. Brown.

Eric: Oh, no, no, no, no. Thank you, Mr. Brown.