Rusty Stahl
Advancing Talent for Social Change.
Director, Talent Philanthropy Project- Principal, RMS Consulting
- Fellow, NYU Wagner
- Professional Biography
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Media Coverage
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Director, Talent Philanthropy Project
- Increasing Investments in Nonprofit TalentVisit TalentPhilanthropy.org or on Twitter @FundThePeopleTalent Philanthropy Project seeks to ensure that funders invest in a robust social sector workforce, beginning with their grantees.Here's why. Funders are only as effective as grantees; grantees are only effective as their talent. The social sector’s people are the bedrock upon which rest capacity, program innovation, performance and outcomes. It would be reasonable, then, for funders to invest in the recruitment, development, and retention of nonprofit professionals. But instead, grants tend to treat talent as “overhead” to be avoided. The resultant disinvestment drains the vibrancy out of the causes funders wish to strengthen.The massive generational and demographic changes taking place this decade in the 11-million person nonprofit workforce increase the urgent need for new ways of funding talent today.Here's How. We propose “talent philanthropy” as a distinct and mutually beneficial form of grantmaking and fundraising, adding it to program support, general operating support, capacity building, etc. Talent philanthropy would enable funders and fundraisers to make nurturing talent within the organizations they support a new strategic priority and practice.Talent Philanthropy Project looks to develop tools that would be useful and adaptable for funders and nonprofits across mission, institutional form, issue focus, and geographic scope.These tools may include quantitative and qualitative research; education and training resources; and funder collaboration to leverage resources for nonprofit talent.Talent Philanthropy Project is currently in the R&D stage. Founded and directed by Rusty Stahl, the Project is incubated at Tides Center in partnership with the Research Center for Leadership in Action at NYU Wagner. To learn more, engage, or discuss investing in the Project, call Rusty at (212) 992-9874, or visit TalentPhilanthropy.org or @FundThePeople.
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Principal, RMS Consulting
- RMS Consulting OverviewPhilosophy: Through his consulting, Rusty Stahl supports the people who are changing the world - and the systems and funders that support them in this exciting and challenging work.Experience: Stahl brings to his consulting considerable experience as a social entrepreneur, grantmaker, changemaker and student of the field.Pedagogy: Mr. Stahl is known as an excellent listener and communicator. He is skilled in synthesizing input to ensure that the perspectives of all stakeholders are considered and integrated into cohesive ideas and plans. Concerned with group process, Rusty is committed to advancing tangible action.Products: Rusty offers strategic advisory services and facilitates projects that are tailored to the needs of clients, and grounded in his real-world experience and deep commitment to civic life and social change. With precision business-writing skills and expansive network of sub-contractors, Mr. Stahl delivers the products you need with excellence, speed and accuracy.Mission: Organizational momentum and success often comes down to two essential and inter-connected ingredients: people and money.
- Human Capital: Every organization or idea is, at its core, composed of individuals and teams. Developing and supporting the right talent at every level is essential. Yet nonprofits and their funders tend to under-invest in the very professionals that ensure effectiveness and make change happen.
- Financial Capital: In the delicate gift-exchange relationship of philanthropy, how can foundations and donors make the most of the resources they must steward? How can nonprofits and fundraisers secure the right resources they need and use them appropriately?
- Talent Development
- Learning across Generations
- Next-Generation Networks
- Next-Generation Executive Transitions
- Foundation Strategy
- Social Justice Philanthropy
- Resource
Mobilization Strategy
These areas may be combined in various ways to meet the needs of any given client.To explore an opportunity to work together, please use the envelope on the bottom left of the screen.To read a brief description of each of the content areas provided above, please continue reading below.More About Content Areas:- Talent Development: To remain excellent, effective, relevant and competitive, social sector organizations must invest in their people and the systems that supports their people. Changing demographics, aging, and workplace economics make this more urgent. Rusty helps clients craft appropriate goals and strategies to build their leadership development systems. Check out my recent work in this area.
- Learning across Generations: Members of the Greatest, Baby Boom, X and Millennial generations serve in board and staff positions in the same organizations. But are they working together? How much are generational differences (real or perceived) in work-style, values and economics holding back effectiveness? Building on his track record of successful multi-generational learning efforts, Mr. Stahl helps clients build meaningful dialogue and multi-directional learning to break thru the tensions and unleash new energy.
- Next-Generation Networks: How can long-standing nonprofits ensure that their legacies continue and evolve? How can groups founded and led by Greatest Generation and Baby Boom leaders recruit and retain X'ers and Millennials? On the other hand, how can .orgs and networks established by next-generation leaders ensure that they are robust and stable, have legitimacy, and a real seat at the table? Rusty brings substantial experience helping older institutions and young leaders successfully establish innovative next-generation networks that are independent and/or embedded in existing organizations or fields. This informs work with clients on developing next-gen networks that excel.
- Next-Generation Executive Transitions: Not every nonprofit executive director who is considering an exit plan is a Baby Boomer looking at retirement or an 'encore career'. Many Generation X'ers and Millennials have founded organizations as social entrepreneurs, or inherited the executive role. Some are trained in management; few are prepared for the process of leaving these groups in a maner that is sustainable for the organization and its leaders. Having founded and successfully left 3 organizations, including designing a 2-year transition process at EPIP and raising $1 million in a unique exit campaign, Rusty can provide clients with practical advice and peer-based support on the challenges of transition planning and execution. To read his my transition, read the set of announcements from EPIP and coverage by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
- Foundation Strategy: How can new or existing foundations or donors make the most of their privileged resources? How can they forge a path that is both strategic and responsive? That holds true to subjective donor intentions and values while staying in touch with ever-changing objective context and need in communities? Informed by a field-wide view of many approaches, Rusty Stahl facilitates the design of a plan that feels right for the client and is fully informed by stakeholders and facts on the ground.
- Social Justice Philanthropy: How can funders really contribute to social change movements? How do they use all the resources at their disposal to practice and support change? How can they balance the urgency of today's need with the long-term nature of problems and the movements needed to address them? Mr. Stahl brings to clients extensive study, practice and networks in social justice oriented philanthropy. I can help you design, assess or change your philanthropic efforts for change.
- Resource Mobilization Strategy: Must nonprofits remain eternally frustrated by writing proposal after proposal, just to rack-up a stack of rejection letters from funders?! This is not necessary. Let's stop the cycle of ineffective fundraising today! Rusty Stahl brings clients deep professional knowledge about how foundations and their people operate. He does not fundraise on behalf of clients; rather he can offer helpful contextual information; train your team on the real-deal skills of fundraising and foundation-relations; and can help you develop a strategy, approach, prospect list and relationship-building skills that will exponentially increase your chance of fundraising success.
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Fellow, NYU Wagner
- Visiting Fellow in ResidenceRusty serves as a Visiting Fellow in Residence at the NYU Wagner Research Center for Leadership in Action.At NYU, he is studying the benefits and opportunities of increased investments in nonprofit talent development, which informs his work at Talent Philanthropy Project.NYU RCLA Web Site
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Professional Biography
- About Rusty Stahl
Rusty Morgen Stahl is a leading voice on multi-generational leadership development and social change in the philanthropic and nonprofit sector. He is accomplished social entrepreneur and consultant.
Mr. Stahl is Principal, RMS Consulting, Founder and Director of Talent Philanthropy Project, and Visiting Fellow in Residence at the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
As a Visiting Fellow in Residence at RCLA, Stahl is part of a community of scholars and researchers focused on supporting the development of leaders in the social sector.
Mr. Stahl is Founder and Executive Director Emeritus of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP), where he was on staff from September 2002 thru August 2012. During his 10-year tenure, Rusty organized a diverse, dynamic network of next-generation foundation professionals working and learning together for their own development, to increase the effectiveness of philanthropy, and to advance the greater good. Rusty's accomplishments at EPIP include developing the following programs:
- EPIP National Conference, the most diverse, energetic and cutting edge gathering in the foundation field;
- Philanthropology, a unique training program for new grantmakers;
- Professional Development Fund, a scholarship and convening program that supports hundreds of emerging foundation leaders of color; and
- Generating Change, an online toolkit to help funders advance talent in nonprofit grantees.
Prior to EPIP, Rusty worked at the Ford Foundation as a Program Associate, where he supported multiple program officers focused on strengthening the infrastructure of philanthropy and civil society, as well as community organizing and social justice movements.
Mr. Stahl has been cited by The New York Times, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Philanthropy News Digest, Foundation News and Commentary and other publications and blogs. He is co-author of the entry on the Ford Foundation in "Philanthropy In America: A Comprehensive Historic Encyclopedia".
Rusty is a proud Board member of Idealist, the renowned portal for civic action and careers; Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ); and Bikkurim.
He served as a grant reviewer for the White House's Social Innovation Fund in 2010, and held seats on advisory committees and task forces for the Council on Foundations, Independent Sector, Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, and Grand Valley State University Johnson Center.
Stahl holds a Masters in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University. At Indiana, Rusty was privileged to study under the late Robert L. Payton, first Professor Emeritus of Philanthropic Studies. He began his studies in Mr. Payton's prestigious Jane Addams Fellowship.
Rusty founded the Central Indiana affiliate of Jobs with Justice, a labor-community alliance.
Photograph of Rusty Stahl courtesy of photographer Barnett Cohen
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Social Entrepreneurship
- Emerging Practitioners In PhilanthropyRusty has launched multiple social initiatives.He first got the "convening bug" in college, when in 1996, he convened representatives from over 20 student organizations to form the Community Circle, a bi-weekly roundtable for sharing and coordinating community service and social action across campus.As a graduate student in 1999, Rusty was inspired when he attended the national conference of Jobs with Justice, a coalition of labor, faith, student and community groups. He returned to Indianapolis and organized Central Indiana Jobs with Justice, which is still active today.While serving as a Program Associate at Ford Foundation, Rusty realized that foundation professionals in their 20s and 30s were disconnected and lacked professional learning and development specific to their philanthropic work.In response, he founded Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP), the national network that builds extraordinary new leaders for foundations and the communities they serve.Rusty founded EPIP with 5 colleagues in 2001. During 2002-2012 he served as Executive Director. In the months after his departure, he served as senior advisor to his successor and the current E.D., Dr. Rahsaan Harris.Under his leadership, EPIP grew from an unproven concept to its current status as a valuable asset for the foundation field. Rusty secured over 600 institutional and individual dues-paying members, and supported members in organizing 13 vibrant chapters across the US from Boston to Honolulu .Signature programs envisioned and developed by Stahl include:
- Philanthropology - a unique orientation and education workshop series for new grantmakers
- Professional Development Fund - a travel scholarship program and annual gathering for emerging foundation professionals of color
- National Conference - the most energetic, cutting-edge and diverse professional meeting in philanthropy
- Generating Change - a toolkit to help funders support leadership and talent development in their grantees
As one effort amongst many meant to move EPIP from start-up to second-stage, and in order to model leadership development, Rusty initiated an executive transition process in 2010 during strategic planning. This ultimately resulted in Rusty's departure in July 2012 and the start of Rahsaan Harris' tenure beginning September 2012.The transition process addressed issues of sustainability, succession planning and fundraising. Stahl worked closely with EPIP's Board of Advisors, foundation supporters, and staff. Invaluable support was provided by consultants and coaches Tom Adams (TransitionGuides), Spence Limbocker (retired from the Neighborhood Funders Group), Cathy Wasserman (Self Leadership Strategies), Randall Quan (Community Resource Exchange). A coalition of funders led by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided over $1 million in multi-year support to help ensure a smooth transition.Today Rusty is busy establishing Talent Philanthropy Project, which you can read about elsewhere on this website. Sky's the limit folks!
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Media Coverage
- Press + Web Coverageby Caroline PrestonChronicle of PhilanthropyAugust 19, 2012by Michelle GianowChronicle of PhilanthropyApril 29, 2012by Ben GoseChronicle of PhilanthropyMarch 4, 2012by Heather CarpenterNonprofit Alternativesblog of consultant Heather CarpenterSeptember 6, 2009by Lucy BernholtzPhilanthropy 2173blog of Blueprint Research and DesignMay 5, 2008Meet Young Founder Rusty Stahlby Bodi LuseFuture Leaders in Philanthropyblog of Changing Our World, Inc.January 28, 2008by Carol KinoNew York TimesNovember 12, 2007Newsmakers Interview with Rusty Stahlby Emily RobbinsPhilanthropy News Digestpublished by Foundation CenterNovember 28, 2005Entry by Rusty Stahl and Alan DivackDwight Burlingame, EditorPhilanthropy in America: A Comprehensive Historic Encyclopediapublished by ABC-CLIO, Inc.2004by Rusty StahlState of Philanthropy 2004 ($)published by National Committee for Responsive PhilanthropyOctober 2004by Darlene SiskaChronicle of PhilanthropyNovember 14, 2002The Other Generational Transfer (Cover Story)by Allan Clyde, Carissa DiMargo, Catherine Andrews, Jody CurtisFoundation News and Commentarypublished by Council on FoundationsJuly/August 2002by Aaron ConleyIUPUI Magazinepublished by Indiana University Purdue University at IndianapolisJanuary 2000
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Tweets
- RT @JeanneBellCP: Grantmakers, speak up please about the harmful consequences of ratings sites scoring NPOs on “fundraising efficiency" no…
- RT @MarshallGinn: The conversation starts often with development but it might be about something much bigger...like leadership @EnrightGEO …
- RT @MarshallGinn: Grantmakers and development consultants have SO much to learn about each other! @JeanneBellCP @EnrightGEO #underdev #phil…
- RT @GrantCraft: We love this new report by @projstreamline sharing #grantmaking practices that matter most http://t.co/0OlcdDemw6
- RT @intldogooder: What kind of rebels are you? http://t.co/I8JjoTQLzi
- .@BrianLehrer there's a reason senators & reps called tea party darlings: tea party groups are political. reason to scrutinize NP status!
- @BrianLehrer Note theres no talk of comparison to Occupy. Likely b/c they didn't apply for np status + didn't try to influence elections!
- “@Indy_Mode: I think #Marvel can skip the #AntMan movie & go directly to #DrStrange. #RandomMovieThoughts”
- RT @GEOfunders: New report from Project Streamline released today: "Practices That Matter: Taking Stock of Streamlining" http://t.co/8i76x8…
- To follow @EDGEFunders Alliance intl social justice philanthropy conference in DC next week, hashtag is #JustGiving2013
- @kathrynfalk: Americans don't care about DC scandals- says @WestWingReport Paul Brandus in new column in @TheWeek http://t.co/saZRFXNHAQ
- Very cool way to "explore the world" GeoGuessr c/o @zzaakkee http://t.co/HMQuxi3xcBMay 20, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Rt @lauratomasko: Foundation Risks Endowment on Creating Jobs @Philanthropy article on @FBHeron http://t.co/6uJivR4lxr subscription needed
- .#cep13 have a great conference!
- RT @helping_change: Our latest report documents the partnership between nonprofit orgs in Prince George's County & the @communityfndn. http…
- Great @NCRP post by fmr @epipny @epipnational ldr Braeden Lentz on the common ground btwn grantmakers + grantseekers http://t.co/ItxN7cwdQZMay 19, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- A chance to but your own piece of the media! The crowd bid agnst the wealthy to buy Tribune papers: http://t.co/lJlv9LJZhYMay 17, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Info
- Social Entrepreneur, Scholar, Organizer + Consultant on Nonprofit Sector TalentNonprofit Organization Management | Greater New York City Area, USSummary
Leading voice on leadership development across generations in philanthropy and the social sector. Social entrepreneur, consultant and scholar.
Experience- Dec 2012 - PresentBoard Member / Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ)
- Nov 2012 - PresentBoard Member / Bikkurim: An Incubator for New Jewish Ideas
- Sept 2012 - PresentFellow / Tides Foundation
- Sept 2012 - PresentVisiting Fellow in Residence / NYU Wagner Center for Leadership in Action
- Sept 2012 - PresentPrincipal / RMS Consulting
- Sept 2002 - PresentMember, Board of Directors / Idealist.org
Additional Information-
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