Topic: Crisis preparedness and response

Impact Next: An interview with Allen Family Philanthropies’ Lara Littlefield

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

At a moment of inequality and division, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster under-served communities? Whose work is fostering the inclusive growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact? 

In 2026, Impact Next — an editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Lara Littlefield, Executive Director of Allen Family Philanthropies. Here’s what she had to say:

Chloe Lew, Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation, NationSwell: What brought you to the field that you’re in right now? Was there an early moment, a relationship, or an experience that galvanized your commitment to driving bold action?

Lara Littlefield, Executive Director, Allen Family Philanthropies: I grew up in a family where community service was embedded in who we were: My mom was an active volunteer in the local children’s community theater, my dad served on the school board, and I grew up watching them both give back to our community.

As a teenager, politically active friends pulled me into volunteering on campaigns around issues like raising the minimum wage. At the same time, I was a dancer and choreographer, and in the arts, every time you want to showcase your work you’re also fundraising, so I had early exposure to both organizing and fundraising.

I loved the arts, but I was also becoming more politically aware. I studied community organizing and political economy, interned with the AFL-CIO, and explored labor organizing. I knew I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector because service and supporting community were core to my motivations. I also needed a job, so I thought about what would make me valuable to a nonprofit and landed on securing capital, which led me into fundraising.

Eventually, I joined the Collins Group, a fundraising consulting firm, where we helped nonprofits build capacity through volunteer-led, staff-supported capital, program and endowment campaigns. I worked on dozens of campaigns across the Pacific Northwest, and it was one of the most inspiring periods of my career — watching people who wanted to do something meaningful jump in and make it happen with a little support.

From there, I went deeper into fundraising at the University of Washington, working at the intersection of research, innovation and impact. That partner-development work eventually led me to what is now Allen Family Philanthropies – founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen and his sister Jody Allyen – an organization I had worked with throughout my career as a fundraiser, a consultant and now as its leader.

Lew, NationSwell: How do you think about leading a foundation that has real influence in Seattle, the community that you’re from and continue to live in? What is that like?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: It was serendipitous in the best way. You never quite know where your career will lead, but I think if you stay connected to your values, they’ll guide you where you want to be. I didn’t seek this role out; it was a wonderful opportunity that evolved over time and felt deeply aligned with what matters to me.

The Allen family has roots here in Seattle. They grew up here, their parents were a librarian and a school teacher, and they remain committed to this place and the topics I believe can be transformational for the region.

When I attended Evergreen State College, my first interdisciplinary cohort was called “Sense of Place.” We brought together biology, English, writing, and art to understand our connection to place and what those ties mean. Looking back, it all feels connected, even though I couldn’t have known that at the time.

This region has undergone a lot of transformation, but its roots and identity are still here. It’s a place of natural beauty, art, and creativity, and a place that continues to push the envelope in technology and business. A lot of places might say that, but for me, it feels authentic because I’ve seen it and grown up with it. It feels very tangible.

Lew, NationSwell: How do you look at the role of community in your work? Is there something else that you see as being really key to a part of your leadership and management with the Foundation?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: It’s a really interesting blend. The foundation has evolved over time, alongside the broader practice of philanthropy, and as a field we’re constantly learning what works, what doesn’t, and which new approaches are worth trying.

There was an era when the foundation’s approach was very much, “move quickly, identify what doesn’t exist but should, and build it.” Innovation is still part of our DNA, and there’s absolutely a place for that. But we’ve also learned that you can develop the most powerful tool in the world, and if it isn’t grounded in an understanding of who it serves, what problem it solves and what adoption will require, it won’t have the impact you intended.

We have three program areas — Arts & Culture, Youth, and Environment — each with its own strategies and goals. But the golden thread connecting all of them is community. We believe that creating a thriving, healthy community requires everyone to play a part.

That means engaging the people closest to the problems, because they often have the strongest solutions. It means responding to what we hear, co-developing approaches, and creating a sense of ownership. Particularly in the environmental sector, we’ve learned that this is what makes a solution sustainable and helps it gain traction. Over the past six years, we’ve really worked to evolve our practices around that belief.

At the same time, we could listen forever, but we also have a point of view. We’re able to look across an entire landscape and identify patterns, associations, and connections that may be harder to see when you’re immersed in the details.

That’s where research and research-to-practice come in. Someone may have a great idea, but it may already have been tested — or there may be evidence showing that a different approach will produce a stronger result. Our role is to bring those perspectives together: to combine the high-altitude view and the experience on the ground.

Lew, NationSwell: How would you describe your leadership style? What is it about the way that you lead in the space that makes you an effective leader?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: I first try to create a culture of psychological safety — one where everyone knows we’re in this together to make the work stronger — and that requires leaving ego at the door. None of us is the smartest person in the room, and once you accept that, you become much more open to possibility and to developing better ideas.

People should feel comfortable challenging one another, asking questions, saying something doesn’t resonate or explaining why they disagree. That means building trust, fostering collegiality, and not reacting defensively when something feels uncomfortable. To me, discomfort is part of growth. I don’t want us to become intellectually comfortable, because everything is dynamic. As soon as you think you have the answer, something changes.

There also has to be rigor. I want us drawing connections across fields and disciplines, because that’s often where innovation comes from. And I want us to feel comfortable taking risks, both personally and in what we bring to the board. If everything we propose is immediately accepted, I don’t think we’re pushing hard enough.

And it should be fun, because what an honor and a privilege it is to do this work. We’re engaging with difficult problems every day, and that can wear us down, but we also get to translate those problems into potential solutions and investments, and I try to keep the team focused on that.

Lew, NationSwell: How do you see Allen Family Philanthropies within the broader philanthropy field? How do you see philanthropy situated within the world?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: I don’t see philanthropy in a singular way. My perspective changes depending on the altitude from which we’re looking at the question.

At one level, we can ask why philanthropy is necessary at all; that raises legitimate questions about the economic model and the accumulation of wealth that makes large-scale philanthropy possible. Those critiques matter.

But there’s also philanthropy on the ground, which isn’t exclusive to major funders. We practice it in our communities every day, often in ways that research doesn’t capture: helping a neighbor, bringing food to someone who is sick, contributing to a crowdfunding campaign or volunteering at your child’s school.

At its core, philanthropy is about acting on your values and beliefs to help people and the world around you. Whatever critiques we bring to the field, people should have opportunities to act on what matters to them, and that requires understanding what their values actually are.

That’s why fundraising, to me, isn’t really about money. Money is the final transaction, but the work is listening to understand someone’s values, the kind of world they want to live in and where they hope to make a difference. It’s about building enough trust that they believe you understand them and can connect them to a meaningful way to act.

Grantmaking is similar. We’re interpreting proposals and conversations through the values of our founders and the foundation. We’re asking whether the work aligns with our vision for impact and whether we can build a relationship grounded in trust, learning and a shared journey.

For us, that relationship shouldn’t be transactional. We want to learn alongside our grantees, and when something doesn’t work, understand why and figure out together whether to adapt or pivot. That becomes difficult with large portfolios, but to me, it’s the heart of philanthropy — just practiced at different scales.

Lew, NationSwell: What’s currently defining the current social and economic environment that we’re in? What are the trends that you’re seeing, and what’s giving you hope right now?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: One thing COVID showed us is that crisis can create opportunity, even in the midst of something terrible. We saw people come together in new ways, and we saw capital move quickly. So we know it’s possible, and we shouldn’t have to wait for a crisis to make that happen.

When I entered this role, I also started seeing more foundations create partner-development functions — people focused on connecting with other funders, aligning strategies, sharing resources and building a stronger understanding of the landscape. None of us is going to solve these problems alone, so the question is how we create greater leverage together.

Pooled funds and collaboratives aren’t new, but I’m seeing much more conversation and partnership among funders, which is encouraging. I’m also seeing trust-based philanthropy grow in scale. That raises important questions about what kind of funder you want to be. Are you simply distributing capital, or are you trying to learn and build relationships as you go?

At the same time, I’m concerned about preserving the philanthropic sector and its ability to make those choices, particularly in moments when attention and funding are pulling inward.

That concern feels especially immediate because of the Ebola outbreak we’re watching now. When Paul was alive, he committed $100 million to the 2014 outbreak, and we funded work across the spectrum — from vaccine development to last-mile community services.

Now, we’re seeing another outbreak accelerate, and we’re trying to understand who is responding and where the gaps are. There’s less U.S. presence, and many funders have shifted toward local giving for very good reasons. But outbreaks don’t respect borders. There’s a risk in pulling inward and assuming that because something isn’t affecting us here right now, it won’t affect us at all.

That’s one of my biggest concerns in this moment: how we maintain a local commitment while still recognizing our global interdependence.

Lew, NationSwell: What issue do you think philanthropy should be paying more attention to right now?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: I’m not sure loneliness is lacking attention — people are talking about it — but I do think we need to do more about it. The disconnection people feel from one another is a real concern.

That’s where work like the Chamber of Connection comes in, along with our investments in arts & culture. How do we create third spaces where people can gather, engage face-to-face, and build relationships? How do we leverage cultural experiences to help people see themsevles and each other in new ways? We know people are hungry for connection, so how do we make it as easy and inviting to step outside and walk into your neighborhood as it is to pick up your phone?

We need more opportunities that bring people in and make them feel welcome. The challenge can seem enormous, especially alongside conversations about AI and what accelerating technology might mean for humanity, but a community-based approach makes it feel more tangible.

Rather than trying to solve for what the entire world will look like in 20 years, we can ask what connection looks like just outside our doors: in our neighborhoods, storefronts, walkable spaces, churches, or other gathering places.

I’m grateful that so many people are leaning into this work. That’s where I feel both the concern and the excitement — they’re two sides of the same coin.

Lew, NationSwell: Is there a particular program, signature initiative, or some facet of the work that you would like to spotlight for us that is driving outcomes for the work?

Littlefield: Each project has a different flavor, and often what resonates personally has to do with the people leading it. That’s also why I believe we need to be out in the field. If my team is spending too much time in the office, I get nervous. We should be talking to people and spending time in the communities we serve. I’m constantly trying to balance that myself.

One project I was closely involved in developing was the Community Accelerator Grant with ArtsFund. During COVID, we wanted to move capital quickly and help arts organizations keep their doors open, and we also wanted the community to help determine where that funding went.

We’re now in the fourth year of the partnership, which has distributed about $10 million each year through a low-barrier process, and every eligible applicant has received funding. We’ve supported more than a thousand arts and culture organizations across all 39 counties in Washington state.

One of the most interesting things we’ve learned is how many small organizations operate below the thresholds captured by traditional reporting systems, yet play critical roles in their communities. This year, we limited eligibility to organizations with budgets under $1 million so that more funding could reach that grassroots level. It’s exciting to discover organizations I had never heard of and to learn more about the ecosystem through their work.

And then there’s the Slingshot Challenge with the National Geographic Society, which supports young people developing environmental solutions and presenting their ideas in a video format. They’ve received applications from around 80 countries, far beyond what we imagined when the program began. Watching those videos is incredibly inspiring and humbling. I’m always thinking, “What was I doing at that age? Can I have a do-over?” These young people are already changemakers

Lew, NationSwell: Are there any resources you’d recommend — books, podcasts, Ted talks — that have influenced your thinking or shaped your perspective?

Littlefield, Allen Family Philanthropies: In these roles, we’re already reading constantly — journals, articles, papers and research — so when I have time to read for myself, I want to get out of my own brain a little.

I really like science fiction because it creates associations I might never have made otherwise. It pushes you to imagine different possibilities and think about the future in a new way. I also listen to podcasts, and one I especially enjoy is Hidden Brain. I like the combination of human stories and the science behind them; that probably speaks to my nerdier side.

I’m also drawn to futurism because in philanthropy, we have to keep thinking about the world we want to create. A colleague and I once explored how we might gather a group of science fiction authors and ask them what we ought to be funding.

More and more, the world can feel like a science fiction story. But I do think there’s something valuable in looking to those writers and thinkers to help us imagine what might come next.

Impact Next: An interview with The Carter Center’s Paige Alexander

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

At a moment of inequality and division, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster under-served communities? Whose work is fostering the inclusive growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact? 

In 2026, Impact Next — an editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Paige Alexander, CEO of The Carter Center, about what it means to lead an institution shaped so deeply by its founders; how The Carter Center is carrying its global health and peacebuilding legacy into a new era; and how to source and refine more durable forms of hope. Here’s what she had to say:

Raymond Hutchison: You’ve mentioned before that you transitioned to The Carter Center from an organization that was founder-led to one that is guided by its founder’s principles. What was it like working with or for Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter, and how has that experience impacted you as a leader?

Alexander, The Carter Center: I had the benefit of coming back in 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though President and Mrs. Carter had spent one week every month up here in Atlanta for 35 years, the pandemic meant that I had to go down to Plains, Georgia every month to meet with them, and that was a great opportunity. 

They were in their own home, a very simple, ranch-style house, and you were two and a half hours away from Atlanta, so really not only outside the Beltway of Washington, but truly in Middle America in many ways.

To listen to their stories, and to have the opportunity to understand how what they saw at the end of the road in Mali and Sudan was similar to what they saw at the end of the road in rural Georgia, in terms of helping people, was really meaningful.

For me, it was also an opportunity to kick the tires on a couple of issues that came up in my first few years. The 2020 election was teeing up, and I felt like we had to work domestically if we were going to be credible overseas in all the elections we were supporting there. President Carter went along with the idea that we could start doing domestic work, and that was a pretty big shift. But he also knew that we had to go where we needed most and where we had something unique to offer.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, I called him and said, ‘We’ve got to do something,’ and he said, ‘There are people in the neighborhood who will take care of Ukraine. We need to be where the neglected people are — dealing with neglected tropical diseases at the end of the road. That’s where people aren’t paying attention,’ he said, ‘and that’s where we should be.’

So I got a very good sense from him of what his North Star was, and that allowed me to recognize where this organization had to go in order to continue to be founder-inspired, even though it wasn’t founder-led.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What is the “North Star” of your leadership style? What is it about the way that you lead in the space that makes you an effective leader?

Alexander, The Carter Center: It’s hard for international NGOs to build legitimacy, and when one does, it’s usually because of things like inclusion, transparency, accountability — all the buzzwords that let people know you’re not going anywhere. 

So for me to come in and think I was going to have a brand-new North Star didn’t feel right, particularly when we had all of these preexisting commitments we needed to honor: eradicating Guinea worm, eliminating other neglected tropical diseases, staying true to human rights… my North Star became very much aligned with theirs.

And I knew that because in all of the work I had done— whether it was in the federal government or with other nonprofits — what people understand, respect, and trust are the people who go to the end of the road with them to complete something, not someone who’s coming in to do a project. So in the end, it was pretty easy to adapt my North Star to theirs.

Hutchison, NationSwell: My impression is that you’re on the road quite a bit. When it comes to social impact, what does proximity mean to you, and how does that influence you as a leader?

Alexander, The Carter Center: Proximity is important — I feel that it defines us. We’re more than 3000  people, and 99% of our staff in the field are local. We don’t have a lot of American or third-country nationals as our chiefs of party, so they don’t always get a lot of overlap with management, per se. So my ability to go out and meet the staff in the field and understand what their pain points are is incredibly important — that’s how I learn.

President Carter and Rosalynn Carter always believed in hiring locally and making sure programs were grounded in local needs, not simply what headquarters was presenting, and to me that’s really important. It’s not one-size-fits-all: What I see in the DRC is not necessarily relevant to Ethiopia, just like how what I see in Arizona is not necessarily relevant to what I’m seeing in Pennsylvania.

But I think being here in Atlanta is equally important; it’s helpful to be around to make sure I’m listening the whole time and reacting appropriately.

I think that’s the most difficult thing about management: you can’t be on a train, or in a boat, if no one is rowing with you.

Hutchison, NationSwell: The Carter Center has recently expanded its domestic work around conflict resolution, democracy, and the integrity of elections. Having seen social and political instability internationally, what feels similar to this moment in America, and what feels different?

Alexander, The Carter Center: When The Carter Center started out, we were initially peace-focused; it was largely about human rights and conflict resolution.

President Carter felt like he could bring people together around a table — all of our buildings here are literally round, because he didn’t want anyone’s back to be in a corner. So, our entire raison d’être was specifically focused on human rights, conflict resolution, and convening people quietly to have those conversations. And then as he traveled, he saw health problems emerging at the end of the road. That became equally important, because both he and Mrs. Carter saw health as a basic human right. 

When you think about how we have changed, and what we have seen, that’s one of the reasons we’re doing more domestic work now. In our conflict resolution work, we were named in the Colombia Peace Accords; we were named in Mali as an observer; we’ve done so much work in Israel-Palestine; we’ve worked in Sudan and South Sudan. In all of those places, we were seen as a neutral voice and a place that could reconvene people.

To be able to go into states here is more difficult, because as The Carter Center, we are the center of a former Democratic president. That makes the work much more challenging, but there are similarities in how we approach it. We don’t have to worry about fighting warlords, but we do recognize that you have to take a left-leaning lead and a right-leaning lead, have them build a community, and find a place where they can agree on something — and that is an incredibly powerful message to people who are listening. 

In North Carolina, for example, they see a former Republican Supreme Court justice sitting on stage with a former Democratic mayor from Charlotte, and the two of them are disagreeing respectfully. That moment shows people that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are some issues where we can talk, find the low-hanging fruit, and build from there.

We do that with warlords, and we do it with political parties here. I think that helps with polarization because we’re not there just to talk at people — we’re there to listen and hear what might be the easiest problem to solve, and what might be the lowest-hanging fruit we can grab onto and build from.

We’re also using lessons from places like South Africa and Northern Ireland to ask: What have we learned? How can we disagree better now, so that when the coin flips and the other side is on top, we know how to do that in a way that’s not vengeful?

Hutchison, NationSwell: Striving for a healthier and more peaceful world is a demanding job for an organizational leader. What are some of the strategies you’re employing in your own life to make it healthier and more peaceful?

Alexander, The Carter Center: Mrs. Carter focused so much on mental health — and destigmatizing it in particular — even as many as 50 years ago, and I think COVID went a long way toward doing that. There isn’t one person you’ll have a conversation with who doesn’t have a family member or a close friend who had a mental health crisis during COVID or post-COVID. And even now, we’re in such a polarizing time. So how do you have these conversations, and how do you take care of yourself?

Our mission statement is to wage peace, fight disease, and build hope. And hope is not a policy, but it is something that we all have to hold onto. Every part of the world has gone through something similar at some time or another, so we’re not alone.

If you can find like-minded people, have one good conversation a day, and find one appreciation for something positive that happened; it really helps ground you.

And if you can turn off the noise, that’s also incredibly important. I am not on social media anywhere near as much as I probably should be, because even those alerts and breaking news notifications can be overwhelming.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are some of the programs, signature initiatives, or facets of the work that you’re doing right now that feel particularly exciting or top of mind for you right now? 

Alexander, The Carter Center: With global health and peace being our focus, and with The Carter Center having started as a peace-focused organization and then grown into global health, President Carter had a wonderful quote that he always used, from his high school teacher: “We must adjust to changing times and hold true to unchanging principles.”

For me, when we’re looking at our signature initiatives, we have to honor our existing commitments. We started down the path of eradicating Guinea worm, and we were doing it in a very specific way. We were getting closer, and then the disease jumped to animals. So how do we adjust to that? How do we address a disease that has moved from humans to animals, and therefore can move back again?

That is probably our signature initiative on the health side, because no other disease has been eradicated except for smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine; Guinea worm is being eradicated through behavior change — by teaching people how to collect water differently than they have for generations and generations.

And the fact that that behavior change has led to only 10 human cases in the world last year, down from 3.5 million cases a year in 21 countries, is remarkable; that’s one of our biggest health initiatives.

Also on the health side is that mental health piece. Everyone cares about mental health now, and that was not true six years ago; it was still very stigmatized, and people wouldn’t talk about it. Now, we’re finding ways to address it through school-based behavioral health and through caregiving.

Mrs. Carter said there are four types of people in the world: those who have caregivers, those who are caregivers, those who will need caregivers, and those who will be caregivers. That’s all of us. So recognizing the need for mental health and caregiving is another important piece of the health side.

And then, when you look at the peace side of the house, there’s no shortage of conflicts. Our job is to continue to place ourselves in the middle as a neutral party that’s willing to talk to both sides and see if we can find space where we can agree on something.

We’ve been really successful in that, not only because of President Carter’s voice — because he could just pick up the phone, knock heads together, and say, “This has to be done” — but because of that legacy. Generationally, in these countries, The Carter Center can walk in with a kind of clean slate, and that gives us a special place at the table.

We also continue to raise the flag on human rights, human rights abuses, and rule of law issues that affect human rights. So it’s a little bit of everything, but those are probably the top four focus areas.

For me, it’s like a graduate school education to be surrounded by colleagues who have devoted their lives to this work, and then to go that last mile and talk to people who have recovered from Guinea worm — people who are now working with us as health volunteers, or working directly for the ministries.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What are some of the things that are giving you hope at the moment?

Alexander, The Carter Center: For me especially, President and Mrs. Carter planned incredibly effectively for the future, and they also gave us an extraordinary off-ramp. During COVID, they stopped coming up every month to spend time here, and that allowed all of us to grow into ourselves and determine what this organization was going to look like when they were no longer active.

They had been talking about that transition for 25 years. And even though we only truly lost them in the last 18 months, they had established this foundation for us that I can build from. That gives me a lot of hope.

I feel like I’m leading an organization that has great ideas every day. The work is choosing which ones we really want to double down on, while still honoring the commitments we already have and continuing to innovate and learn all the time. That’s hopeful.

I see our work as preserving democracy and making headway — not only overseas, but in our own backyard — and we can’t do that unless we’re willing to be honest about where our own foibles are, and apply that honesty to every lesson we have learned.

That honesty and transparency also give me hope. It means we’re not walking around life with blinders on. We’re asking: What does the big picture look like, and how can we effect change?

Raymond Hutchison: Let’s say you’re having guests over; what are you putting on the record player. What books are you going to lay out for them to see? 

Alexander, The Carter Center: I just went through one of our bookshelves recently, and Ta-Nehisi Coates was the first thing I saw — and it was in Dutch. When did I ever think I was actually going to read that in Dutch?

It really depends on what kind of person was coming over. I could have jazz or piano music on if I were looking to lower the vibe, and I’d be very happy to have Springsteen on if I were trying to get people hyped up.

As far as books go, Peter Attia is on my bookshelf right now, because I was living off this idea that I was going to get healthier and be better. And then there’s Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, which feels very relevant because I’m in the sandwich generation. I have parents in their 90s and kids in their 20s, so I think I’m drawn to books that help me think about how you treat both generations, and how you find your place in the middle of that.

Hutchison, NationSwell: What is one call to action you have for other impact leaders in this moment?

Alexander, The Carter Center: Hope can’t just be something we talk about in the abstract. It has to mean staying engaged — especially when the work feels hard, or slow, or discouraging. We have to look at the generations around us, older and younger, and recognize that if we don’t make a difference now, we’re missing the moment.

A lot of that engagement has to happen at the subnational level. That’s something we’ve learned overseas: not everything happens at the national or federal level, and we need to learn that here in the U.S., too.

How are you involved in your community? How are you proximal to solving local problems? So much of this work is going to come from the ground up. We can’t wait for government or policy to take care of everything; we have to build from trusted local institutions — the places people already know, rely on, and feel safe turning to.

Here in Atlanta, for example, we run a domestic violence program that works through fire stations. Someone experiencing domestic violence — especially a child — may not feel comfortable walking into a police station, but they might walk into a fire station. There are 36 fire stations in Atlanta and only six police stations; they’re close, they’re trusted, and people show up.

That’s what we all have to work toward: finding trusted institutions where we’re willing to show up, listening to each other, and making them stronger. That’s what builds social cohesion — not talking past each other, not othering each other, but creating places where people can be seen, heard, and helped.

Supporting Grantees and Partners Facing Heightened Risk and Pressure

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Nonprofits and community partners are operating under increasing strain—from funding uncertainty and rising demand to political scrutiny and public pressure. Many are being asked to do more with less, while navigating a more complex and, at times, more fragile operating environment.

During a July 8 virtual Roundtable, corporate impact and philanthropy leaders from across the NationSwell ecosystem gathered to explore how funders can better support their grantees and partners in this moment. The conversation was a candid exploration of what responsible, responsive partnership looks like today, and how funders can show up in ways that strengthen the organizations they rely on to deliver impact. Some of the most salient takeaways from the event appear below:

Key takeaways

Fund collaboration as much as you fund the mission. The appetite for coordinated work has rarely been higher, with more openness to shared ventures than the field has seen in years. Yet the exploration and design of that collaboration too often goes unfunded, leaving good instincts unrealized. Creating deliberate incentives and funding for partnership, shared infrastructure, and collaborative planning is a durable way to strengthen the sector.

Invest in leaders as people. Operational funding keeps organizations running, but the leaders steering them are navigating burnout, isolation, and extraordinary strain. Especially at a time when investments in strategic planning, professional development, and organizational capacity are increasingly viewed as luxuries, funders have an opportunity to treat leader wellbeing and organizational health as essential. 

Narrow the focus without sacrificing relationships. As funders concentrate resources among fewer grantees and organizations return to their core strengths, the discipline of doing fewer things well is proving sustainable. The opportunity is to sharpen strategic focus while remaining intentional about maintaining relationships, exploring partnerships, and ensuring valuable organizations do not become disconnected from the broader ecosystem.

Support creative experimentation. Organizations are innovating faster in response to a rapidly changing operating environment, yet many funders still look for evidence before investing. Creating room for pilots, learning, and responsible experimentation enables nonprofits to generate the evidence funders seek while accelerating new approaches that better meet evolving community needs.

Remove friction and replace it with trust. Waiving unnecessary administrative requirements, simplifying applications and reporting, and continually asking partners what barriers funders can remove frees organizations to focus on their mission instead of bureaucracy. Just as importantly, creating trusted channels for honest feedback allows funders to respond as collaborative partners.

Extend support beyond the grant. Some of the most valuable support lives outside the grant like legal and policy expertise, marketing and communications, and accessible support networks. Funders can also leverage their influence by bringing nonprofit partners into rooms where their voices are heard, their expertise informs decisions, and their networks can grow. These forms of support build capacity that funding alone cannot provide.

Keep convening, and keep listening. In a period of sustained uncertainty, peer networks have become an essential source of perspective, validation, and problem-solving. Regularly bringing partners together and checking in with them between convenings creates opportunities to surface emerging needs and ensure support evolves alongside the realities organizations are facing.

NationSwell op-ed: Predicting the Future of Work

Posted on Jacob Lepiarz and Allie Mahler

We are currently living through one of the most profound shifts in the history of work. As AI, automation, and other emerging technologies redefine jobs, skills, and career pathways wholesale, leaders across sectors are being called to meet these industry-wide undulations head-on and help shape what comes next.

That imperative is at the heart of NationSwell’s new Workforce Innovation Collaborative — a cross-sector effort designed to help leaders explore emerging workforce trends and co-design scalable solutions for a more future-ready and inclusive economy. Through shared learning, strategic dialogue, and collective action, the Collaborative aims to create the kind of trusted space leaders need to navigate uncertainty and create a future-ready workforce where every person has the skills, opportunities, and support to succeed.

To mark the launch of that work, NationSwell invited leaders from the Collaborative to respond to a shared prompt:

Which emerging signals are giving you the most optimism about the future of work right now? And where do you currently see the greatest opportunity to build a system that is more responsive to where work is headed next?

Although their responses reflect different vantage points, they converge around the common belief that the future of work will be shaped by how well leaders connect learning to real opportunity, pair innovation with inclusion, and design workforce systems that can adapt as quickly as the world around them changes.

Prompt: Which emerging signals are giving you the most optimism about the future of work right now? Where do you currently see the greatest opportunity to build a workforce system that is more responsive to where work is headed next?

“We are at an inflection point in the future of work, and I believe the greatest source of optimism and opportunity is in mastering the art and science of building truly responsive workforce systems.

The science is the strategic leveraging of predictive labor market intelligence. By shifting away from reactive measures, we can now leverage data and insights to anticipate skill demands driven by global trends. Our data provides the scientific rigor needed to pinpoint future talent shortages, standardize risk indicators, and replace guesswork with reliable, real-time insights, allowing us to accelerate our workforce investments across the globe.

However, the true opportunity — the art — lies in translating those insights and data into hyper-local execution that allows us to co-create with the communities we work in. This essential human-centered approach ensures our work doesn’t just fill a business gap, but actively builds equitable, transparent systems that deliver a net-positive impact in local communities. We achieve this by cultivating bespoke, long-term partnerships with community leaders, educational institutions, and nonprofits. 

Linking our global data-driven approach to local trust and co-creation is the systemic approach necessary to ensure our interventions foster equity and accessibility, building the sustainable, resilient workforce the future demands.”

— Courtney Williams, Global Workforce Development & Labor Market Intelligence, Google

“Across the Design and Make industries, I’m seeing promising workforce solutions that connect access, applied skills, and real hiring pathways. It’s no longer enough to train people on tools in isolation — what’s emerging now are integrated models that build capability in real workflows, validate those skills through industry recognized credentials, and link learners directly to opportunity. That’s how we ensure both students and experienced professionals can adapt and thrive as technology reshapes the future of work.”

— Kate Buchanan, Workforce Innovation & Investment Lead, Autodesk Foundation

“Right now, what gives me the most optimism about the future of work is the growing consensus that, as AI reshapes roles, human-centric skills — critical thinking, communication, and creativity — matter more, not less. It’s really important that optimism is matched with action in this moment, and through Barclays LifeSkills, our programs are helping people to develop these skills in order to differentiate themselves for current and future roles.

As we look at the workforce development sector, the greatest opportunity is to build a system that keeps pace with change by connecting learning to work earlier and more often, and by updating training as employer needs evolve faster. That means scaling employer-aligned earn-and-learn pathways — apprenticeships, fellowships, internships and project-based work — so learners graduate with an increased level of experience. It also means widening access to growth sectors, including AI-enabled roles and the skilled trades, where we continue to see strong demand. Through Barclays LifeSkills, we’re working across our partnerships to turn demand into clear routes to good jobs.”

— Deborah Goldfarb, Global Head of Citizenship, Barclays

“What gives me optimism is how clearly manufacturing and industrial skills are being redefined as both high-tech and people-driven. Advances in automation, digital tools and connected systems are changing work on the factory floor and at job sites. Realizing the full value of those advances depends on sustained investment in our people through skills-building, learning and clear career pathways. I’m also encouraged by how employers are engaging more intentionally with collaborators beyond their organizations. We’re witnessing stronger coordination among educators, workforce systems and local communities to ensure training keeps pace with technological advancement. This alignment — of innovation, skills and purpose — is a compelling signal that manufacturing can provide meaningful, fulfilling careers in a dynamic industry.

One of the greatest opportunities lies in modernizing workforce systems to evolve alongside the technologies shaping manufacturing. High schools, community colleges and regional training providers are critical anchors in this system, and we need to align more closely and dynamically with them, given that roles and skill requirements are changing faster than traditional training cycles can keep pace.

That means co‑designing training pathways that blend hands‑on experience with digital and technology‑enabled learning. It also means creating opportunities for continuous upskilling throughout a career. When workforce systems are built to adapt — rather than react — they not only prepare people for today’s manufacturing roles, but also for the future. They also help ensure the industry can remain innovative, competitive, and resilient over the long term.”

— Asha Varghese, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Caterpillar Inc. and President of the Caterpillar Foundation

“We are seeing a historic surge in systems readiness work at the local, state, and national levels. Stakeholders in the workforce ecosystem sometimes work in silos, but I’m seeing sustained interest in collaboration, especially across sectors. We are collectively examining what worked in the past to determine what must evolve for the future. 

There’s also growing consensus that career journeys of the future will be less linear. We know upskilling isn’t one-dimensional. It might mean deepening expertise to grow within an existing career trajectory, diversifying skills to transition into an adjacent role, or pivoting into an entirely new profession. A big opportunity right now is to reimagine our support systems to recognize this full spectrum of movement, ensuring that our infrastructure is as flexible as the workers it serves.”

— Diana Fischer, Senior Director, Workday Foundation

“One of the greatest opportunities is in building accelerated, more flexible pathways into the skilled trades that are tightly connected with employer needs. A more responsive workforce system should focus on expanding apprenticeships, investing in short-term training, and exposing students earlier to these fulfilling and well-paying careers.”

— Betsy Conway, Executive Director, Lowe’s Foundation

Predicting the Future of Work: Using Data to Build More Inclusive Workforce Systems

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

As AI and automation accelerate change across the labor market, predictive analytics offer powerful tools to anticipate which jobs, skills, and communities face the greatest risk – and where new opportunities are emerging.

On April 14, NationSwell convened a group of cross-sector leaders for a conversation on how data-driven insights can inform equitable training pathways, smarter investments, and workforce systems that are more responsive, inclusive, and resilient – ensuring workers are prepared for what’s next. Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below:

Key takeaways

Build workforce systems around capabilities, not credentials. A skills-first labor market only works if the underlying data infrastructure can recognize how people actually build skills through work, not just through degrees. When systems continue to privilege credential proxies over demonstrated capability, they miss large pools of qualified talent and reinforce inequities that workforce initiatives are meant to solve.

Pair predictive tools with better upstream data. Forecasting tools are only as strong as the signals they rely on. If workforce data continues to over-index on traditional credentials or lagging indicators, even sophisticated models will reproduce old blind spots; the real opportunity is to feed these systems richer, skills-based, real-world signals that surface emerging pathways earlier.

Invest in verified outcomes data, not just self-reported program metrics. Too much workforce decision-making still depends on incomplete or anecdotal outcome data. Expanding access to administrative wage data and other verified sources can help providers understand which programs are actually driving employment and earnings gains, and make more strategic decisions about what to scale, refine, or retire.

Use labor market data to map mobility, not just demand. It is not enough to know which jobs are growing. More useful systems help workers and practitioners understand how people can move from one role to the next based on shared skills, adjacent occupations, and realistic transition pathways, especially in a labor market where workers will increasingly need to pivot across sectors over time.

Treat durable human skills as core infrastructure. As AI and automation continue to reshape tasks, foundational capabilities like problem-solving, judgment, adaptability, collaboration, and communication are becoming more valuable. Technical requirements will keep evolving, but these underlying skills are what allow workers to remain resilient and mobile across changing tools, roles, and industries.

Redesign learning environments for experiential learning, not just memorization. Traditional teaching methodologies are increasingly challenged in a labor market where workers are expected to interpret information, make decisions, and adapt in real time. Experiential learning where people must apply knowledge, navigate ambiguity, and solve real problems better prepares learners for a world in which execution is increasingly automated and judgment is the differentiator.

Center the learner’s lived experience when designing workforce pathways. Workforce systems often default to employer demand signals and institutional priorities, but durable pathways require equal attention to how individuals actually make decisions. People choose careers based on identity, values, belonging, perceived risk, and developmental stage so the strongest systems help learners navigate options rather than simply presenting them.

Avoid replacing one rigid pathway with another. As enthusiasm grows around alternatives to four-year degrees, there is a risk of steering lower-income learners into workforce tracks while more privileged peers retain access to broader optionality. The goal is not to substitute “college for some, training for others,” but to build multiple high-quality pathways that preserve dignity, mobility, and long-term choice across backgrounds.Reframe middle-skill and nontraditional career paths as real engines of mobility. Many high-demand roles outside the traditional college track now offer strong wages, lower debt burden, and meaningful advancement potential, yet outdated perceptions still diminish their value. Shifting both rhetoric and practice to put career and college readiness on more equal footing is essential if workforce systems are going to reflect today’s economic realities.

Chobani | Impact through product innovation

Chobani | Impact through product innovation

How Chobani’s Super Milk is redefining disaster relief and food security

Chobani’s idea for Super Milk came out of two urgent challenges: the growing number of climate-related disasters and a steep rise in food insecurity across the U.S. Today, billion-dollar disasters are hitting every couple of weeks, displacing families and driving up demand for shelf-stable, nutrient-dense food. At the same time, in 2023 food insecurity affected approximately 20% of households, putting even more strain on food banks. While milk is one of the most requested items, it’s also one of the hardest to get out quickly—it needs refrigeration and doesn’t last long, often arriving just before it expires.

To overcome these challenges, Chobani marshaled its in-house expertise in dairy innovation, supply chain management, and community impact to create a shelf-stable, nutrient-dense milk specifically designed for disaster relief and hunger alleviation. Produced at Chobani’s Idaho plant, Chobani Super Milk is made with a blend of real milk and ultrafiltered milk to achieve an excellent source of high-quality protein, with less sugar than traditional milk. An enzyme naturally converts sugars into galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), a high-quality prebiotic fiber, that contributes to gut health and digestion. Chobani Super Milk is aseptically processed, which allows for a 9-month shelf life without refrigeration and without any added preservatives, resulting in a product that is accessible, nutritious, and highly transportable to the communities who need it most.

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Place Based Impact: Preparing Communities for Shifts in Funding

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Many communities are bracing for a new era of volatility in public funding. Federal and state commitments that once underpinned local economic development, workforce programs, public health, and social infrastructure are shifting—sometimes slowly, sometimes abruptly. For place-based partnerships, the question is no longer how to “navigate uncertainty,” but how to get ahead of it: building durable coalitions, diversified capital stacks, and locally anchored strategies that can withstand political and budget swings.

On February 24, NationSwell hosted leaders from philanthropy, business, and nonprofit organizations for a virtual Leader Roundtable on what it means to be proactive rather than reactive in this moment. Together, we identified some of the emerging funding realities that matter most, examined models that successfully blend public, private, and philanthropic investment, and explored how communities can lock in long-term capacity.

Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below:

Key takeaways

Choose the sandbox before building the partnership. Cross-sector collaboration becomes more durable when partners identify a single, shared leverage point to experiment within first. Rather than attempting to solve everything at once, clarity about “where we play together” creates trust, momentum, and space for additional tentacles to grow over time.

Design for volatility, not stability. Federal funding cliffs, frozen allocations, and delayed rulemaking are cascading unevenly through state and local systems. The challenge is not only reduced dollars but radical unpredictability. Communities that build flexible structures — scenario planning, adaptable staffing, blended capital, diversified revenue — are better positioned than those waiting for clarity.

Build infrastructure that can outlast any single funding cycle. Place-based partnerships anchored around shared outcomes and generational time horizons prove more durable than programmatic responses tied to specific grants. When communities control data, define their own metrics, and align around long-term goals, funding shifts become disruptions — not existential threats.

Centering long term resilience while meeting emergency needs is critical. Crisis funding often pulls oxygen away from structural work. While emergency pivots are necessary, abandoning long-term capital strategies undermines resilience. Patient investment may move more slowly, but it builds the conditions that reduce the need for perpetual crisis response.

Sequence cross-sector roles intentionally — don’t assume alignment will happen organically. Many effective tools already exist across philanthropy, government, finance, and community organizations, but they operate in silos. Progress depends less on inventing new models and more on clarifying who de-risks first, who follows, and who sustains momentum over time.

Shift from dependency to agency in funding relationships. Traditional funding flows often create quiet dependency rather than shared ownership. This moment presents an opportunity to reimagine civic infrastructure so communities are less reliant on shifting political winds and more grounded in mutual aid, local partnership, and distributed leadership.

Define your highest leverage point with ruthless clarity. In periods of contraction, organizations that articulate a singular, sharp value proposition are better positioned to build durable partnerships. Simplicity creates alignment; alignment creates momentum.

Educate internally before reacting externally. Policy shifts, whether related to Medicaid, SNAP, or federal allocations, cascade through state and county systems unevenly. Investing in internal understanding of implementation realities builds smarter, steadier responses than reacting to headlines alone.

Plan for long-term disruption, not a return to “normal.” Assuming a political pendulum swing will restore prior funding norms creates strategic blind spots. Durable strategy accounts for sustained volatility rather than temporary turbulence.

Recognize that local governments are capacity-constrained, not idea-constrained. Municipal leaders are absorbing compounding responsibilities as federal roles recede. The barrier is rarely imagination; it is operational bandwidth and systems capacity. Partners who reduce friction and bring execution support add more value than those offering additional strategy alone.

Use this moment to reimagine civic infrastructure, not just fortify it. Resilience should not mean reinforcing fragile systems that created dependency in the first place. Volatility can serve as an opening to rethink power, partnership, and local agency. Cultural imagination and narrative often precede structural change.

PepsiCo | Feeding potential

PepsiCo | Feeding potential

How PepsiCo’s Food for Good is creating a blueprint for global food security

Food for Good — the PepsiCo Foundation initiative for advancing food security — launched in Dallas, Texas, as an exercise in deep listening. Through sustained conversations with trusted community volunteers and leaders, PepsiCo learned that the 19 million school-aged children in the U.S. who depend on free or reduced-price meals at school were facing critical gaps in access to nutritious food during the summer months, when school was not in session.

Beginning in the summer of 2009, PepsiCo leveraged its food production, logistics, and distribution expertise — as well as a partnership with Frito-Lay, the convenient foods business unit of PepsiCo, that allowed for borrowed access to trucks and warehouse space — to prototype a summer meal delivery model. The privately-funded program quickly expanded into new cities, eventually outgrowing its original facility but maintaining its original commitment to staying rooted in community feedback and mission to fight hunger through access and equity.

Food for Good combines large-scale meal distribution, job creation, targeted child nutrition, disaster relief, and impactful storytelling to distribute nutritious meals and address crisis-driven hunger at scale.

 

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Impact Next: An interview with PepsiCo Foundation’s C.D. Glin

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

At a moment of turmoil, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster under-served communities? Whose work is fostering growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact? 

In 2025, Impact Next — an editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed C.D. Glin, President of the PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Social Impact for PepsiCo.

NationSwell: What brought you to the role that you’re in right now? Was there a moment, a relationship, or an experience that galvanized your commitment to driving bold action?

C. D. Glin, President, PepsiCo Foundation: My journey really began in service. My dad spent nearly 30 years in the Air Force, my mom had a degree in social work, and I grew up with five siblings on military bases around the world — England, Italy, the Azores, Portugal. Service to family, community, and country was in our DNA.

The true inflection point for me came as a member of the first group of Peace Corps volunteers in South Africa. This was during the historic Presidency of Nelson Mandela. That experience shaped my worldview, teaching me humility, the power of proximity, and the importance of community-led solutions. Since then, whether in philanthropy, government, or now leading social impact and philanthropy at PepsiCo, I’ve been guided by the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to thrive and that giving your time, talent, and resources is essential.

Achievement of goals big or small, most often occurs through participation — being a part of the change — through partnership, collaborating with others, and through purpose-driven leadership. These are principles I first learned not in a classroom or from a book, but while living in a South African village as a Peace Corps volunteer nearly 30 years ago.

NationSwell: What makes you a successful impact leader? What approaches, beliefs, and practices would you say are the hallmark of your leadership style?

Glin, PepsiCo Foundation: Looking back on my career, my leadership has evolved from direct service — being on the ground, listening, observing, learning and responding — to focusing on systems change and root-cause solutions. Today, I lead with a mindset of collective action for collective impact, wherein philanthropy, business, policy and community participation are aligned to help drive scalable, sustainable change. My style has become more collaborative, data-informed, and always rooted in empathy, equity and inclusion of those with lived experiences.

For me, empathy plus action is caring, and true caring means putting yourself in someone else’s situation and then doing something about it. That philosophy of “don’t just talk about it, be about it” has been central to how I lead and how I serve. Combined with collaboration and data, it has shaped my ability to contribute to durable, positive, lasting change.

This emphasis on collective impact is also front of mind for our Social Impact team at Pepsico. At this year’s Summit, themed Together and Advance, we released an insights report highlighting models, case studies, and best practices for building stronger partnerships. The field is full of enthusiasm for collaboration, but there’s still a gap between intention and effective execution. Our goal is to equip and inspire others with actionable tools to close that gap and to reinforce the idea that we are stronger together.

NationSwell: Are there any facets of your work or leadership that you feel are particularly differentiated that you’d like to lift up? 

Glin, PepsiCo Foundation: At PepsiCo, we’ve honed in on our approach to social impact. As the largest U.S. food and beverage company, we believe we have a responsibility and an opportunity to help our communities thrive and be a force for good. Our strategy, PepsiCo Positive, positions social impact — the totality of the positive contributions we make with and for people and communities — not as a side initiative but as an enterprise-wide commitment embedded across our brands, supply chains, and global workforce.

Our framework focuses on access and advancement: helping ensure greater access to essentials like food and safe water, and then seeking to leverage that access to catalyze social and economic advancement, creating opportunities for education, jobs and increased income.  As a food and beverage company rooted in agriculture, we’re especially focused on food access solutions and farming. Programs like our Food for Good social enterprise, which sources, packs, and delivers meals to children and families in need after school, on weekends, and during the summer, address hunger locally. Separately, the She Feeds the World program, in partnership with CARE, invests in smallholder farmers who make up the backbone of global food systems. These initiatives allow us to meet people where they are, rather than suggest solutions from afar.

What makes this work powerful is its integration with PepsiCo’s core capabilities: how we grow, source, manufacture, transport, distribute, market and sell food and beverages; how our brands show up in the world; how we engage over 300,000 associates globally; and how we drive supply chain decisions, from regenerative agriculture to diverse sourcing. For me, leading social impact at PepsiCo is both pressure and privilege. The needs of communities where we live, operate and serve are immense, but the opportunity to align business growth with meaningful, scalable change — and to prove that business can be a positive force in creating thriving communities — is what drives me every day.

NationSwell: How are you making sense of this moment — what are the challenges and opportunities you’re seeing?

Glin, PepsiCo Foundation: Right now, I find myself doing a lot more listening. I’m trying to lean into curiosity and appreciative inquiry — being a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage. The past five years have demanded constant response, whether to the pandemic, economic shocks, or injustice. 

Part of that reflection is recognizing that the challenges we face are deeply interconnected, and fatigue from being “always on” is real. I don’t believe today’s problems can be solved with yesterday’s approaches. We’ve long talked about the importance of local leadership, but now it’s a necessity. Too often, solutions are designed far from the communities they aim to serve. At PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation, we’ve emphasized community-rooted partnerships, and I’m centering my own listening on local voices — whether that’s farmers in Egypt, food-insecure families in the U.S., or communities needing access to safe water in Mexico.

The noise at the top can be distracting. Real impact happens closest to the challenges, so I’m choosing to listen, learn, and to be led by those at the local level. That’s where meaningful change must begin.

NationSwell: Of the socially motivated leaders you consider your peers, who are 2-3 whose work has inspired you and whom you hold in high esteem?

Glin, PepsiCo Foundation: Three leaders come to mind, and the first is Darren Walker. I’ve looked to his example at nearly every stage of my career, from his time at Abyssinian Development Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, where I first met him, to his bold, transformational leadership at the Ford Foundation. What I admire most is his unapologetic stance on equity, systems change, and social justice, paired with the humility of leading in service to others. Over the past few years, I’ve also had the opportunity to engage with him in new ways as he served on PepsiCo’s board, bringing a philanthropic mindset that resonates deeply in corporate spaces.

The second is Helene Gayle. Helene’s career spans medicine, global health, development, philanthropy, corporate boards, and most recently higher education leadership. What she embodies for me is multi-disciplinary leadership — the ability to connect gender, health, business, philanthropy, and education in ways that are both rigorous and inclusive. Where Darren’s example has been about passion and boldness, Helene’s has been about perspective and breadth, showing how multiple disciplines can come together in service of lasting change.

And finally, Graham Macmillan, now at the Visa Foundation. Our career paths have overlapped in private philanthropy and corporate social impact, and I admire the thoughtfulness and generosity he brings to this moment. Graham consistently pushes corporate foundations and those who support the sector toward collaboration rather than competition, encouraging leaders and organizations to focus on collective impact. He brings expertise, intellect and humility to every conversation, and his journey has been a personal reminder of what it means to carry your values across institutions while helping the field grow stronger together.

NationSwell: Are there any resources you’d recommend — books, podcasts, Ted talks — that have influenced your thinking that might influence others as well?

Glin, PepsiCo Foundation: Three books come to mind right away. The first is The Alchemist. I don’t think you can reread it enough, especially in moments of transition. For me, it’s a reminder that life is purpose-driven — that even when things feel tough, the universe is conspiring to put me in situations where I can grow and do more. It grounds me whenever I need perspective.

The second is Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. This book reframed my entire approach to relationships. Ferrazzi’s philosophy — that generosity, consistency, and meaningful connection are the true engines of success — has stayed with me.  It taught me that none of us advances alone, that leadership is as much about investing in others as it is about delivering results.  Whenever I get buried in work or am slow to respond, I remind myself of that core truth: relationships require attention, presence, and the humility to let others support you as much as you support them.


And the last one is The Autobiography of Malcolm X. To me, it’s one of the greatest stories of transformation ever told. Malcolm’s journey — from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X to El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz — reveals that reinvention isn’t just possible; it’s essential. His life story shows what it’s like to expand your thinking, deepen your convictions, and evolve your purpose. In my career, I’ve crossed industries, sectors and roles many times, and his story reminds me that what got me here won’t necessarily get me there. Growth demands courage, curiosity, and a willingness to become something new. That’s a lesson I carry with me every day. 

Five Minutes with… Niagara Cares’ Ann Canela

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

For this installment of Five Minutes With, NationSwell sat down with Ann Canela, director of Corporate Giving at Niagara Bottling and head of Niagara Cares, to talk about the new “Love Your Happy Place” campaign — a colorful, citywide initiative encouraging people to show love for the places they call home.

Rooted in behavioral science and built on empathy rather than guilt, the campaign aims to make environmental action feel joyful, personal, and contagious — proving that small, “too-small-to-fail” acts can add up to big community impact.

Here’s what Ann had to say:

NationSwell: What was the inspiration for this kind of community-focused coalition building? What are the main goals of the initiative? 

Ann Canela, head of Niagara Cares: The “Love Your Happy Place” campaign began as a national initiative but drew its real inspiration from local communities. The idea was to spark local “too-small-to-fail” actions — picking up litter, recycling, joining a cleanup — that collectively show love for where we live. Grounded in behavioral science, we studied why recycling rates stagnate, following people in their daily routines to understand their confidence, confusion, and barriers. What we found was that emotion — especially empathy and optimism — moves people more effectively than guilt or logic. This insight shaped a campaign that leaned into joy, play, and gamification in order to motivate environmental action.

Our first pilot in Austin wrapped the city in messages of love — from murals and bus wraps to community events—and boosted recycling confidence and civic pride by double digits. That success has since expanded to San Diego, where coalitions of partners are leading beach cleanups, park recycling competitions, and tree plantings, with activations culminating around Valentine’s Day and Earth Month. The model is spreading rapidly — next stops include Denver, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Oakland — and has already earned Keep America Beautiful’s award for Best Sustainable Communications. It’s a campaign powered by optimism, local pride, and the belief that love, expressed through small daily actions, can create measurable change.

NationSwell: What do you think it is about small coalitions that activates this optimism or civic pride lever in folks’ brains? 

Ann Canela: People see these huge signs that say love and it’s disruptive, it makes you stop and look, but it’s also universal. Love is something everyone understands; to me, it’s the purpose of everything. The challenge with many climate-related campaigns is that we often ask too much of individuals. But when you break it down into small, tangible actions — like picking up a piece of litter on a walk — and remind people that thousands of others are doing the same, the collective impact becomes visible and real.

Those simple acts connect people to a larger purpose. It’s not just about one person recycling or cleaning up; it’s about feeling part of a shared movement that turns small gestures into massive change. There’s a kind of magic in that: When people can see themselves reflected in the solution and recognize that love, expressed through everyday action, truly adds up.

NationSwell: What compelled you to get involved in sustainability in the first place? What galvanized your interest in piloting bold solutions? 

Canela, Niagara Cares: When I joined Niagara, there wasn’t a formal CSR platform, just a family fund rooted in decades of charitable giving. My career throughline has always been strategic philanthropy: using funding in ways that align with a company’s purpose, engage employees, and resonate with consumers. For Niagara, that meant mapping philanthropy to what we make — water — and investing in recycling, water restoration, and disaster relief. Rather than forcing climate work into our business, we’ve focused on making every dollar work smarter, advancing multiple goals at once: driving impact, supporting employee volunteerism, and shifting culture.

As a private, B2B company, we’re not a household name, but our products touch people’s lives daily. That’s why we hold ourselves accountable for every philanthropic investment — we want each dollar to serve both business and community. Beyond funding, we take an active role with grantees: fundraising alongside them, hosting events, and investing deeply in their success. My goal is to help move philanthropy forward — not just by what we fund, but by how we give, ensuring it’s collaborative, strategic, and built for lasting change.

NationSwell: What do you feel is the North Star of your leadership — the principle or ideal you look to in order to be the most effective leader possible? 

Canela, Niagara Cares: I’ve always believed that effective leadership, like strong branding, requires a balance between head and heart. To truly connect with people, you need both strategic clarity and emotional authenticity. I’m not afraid to show emotion; the issues we work on are real and deeply human. My approach is to pair a thoughtful, data-driven strategy with genuine empathy — to be both the mind and the soul of the business. That balance allows me to lead in a way that’s motivational, grounded, and real.

At the same time, none of this work happens alone. Behind every success is a team that inspires me daily, partners who share our vision, and nonprofits doing the hard work on the ground. It’s a collective effort — each part strengthening the other — and I couldn’t be prouder of the people I get to collaborate with. Together, we make each other better and turn strategy into meaningful, lasting impact.

NationSwell: What is exciting you right now? What is the next thing on the horizon that has you really excited? 

Canela, Niagara Cares: What’s exciting is that this is a new strategy for Niagara — we launched it at the start of 2024, so we’re only in our second year. The first year was about benchmarking: understanding what was possible and how to execute it. By year two, we established ambitious KPIs — feeding 150,000 people a month, planting a million trees, and restoring a billion gallons of water over five years. But we’ve already surpassed expectations: 400,000 trees planted this year alone, 70,000 people fed, and water goals we’ll likely reach within 18 months.

Now we’re asking ourselves what’s next — how we can stretch even further and scale our impact. Reevaluating and expanding these goals isn’t just a metric exercise; it’s a reflection of the legacy we want to leave in the world. Seeing how much we can accomplish in such a short time makes me incredibly proud and motivated for what’s ahead.

NationSwell: What, to your mind, is sort of defining the world of philanthropy right now? What are you seeing that is giving you the most hope? 

Canela, Niagara Cares: In corporate philanthropy, the shifting flow of money is redefining everything. Funding models are changing so quickly that many nonprofit leaders are struggling to adapt — but what I find hopeful is how many corporate peers are stepping up to help. Companies are working more closely with partners, offering flexible funding, and showing real empathy for the challenges nonprofits face. I recently joined a roundtable on the state of corporate giving where people were moved to tears — and to me, that emotion reflects deep commitment to sustaining impact in uncertain times.

Even as traditional funding sources dry up, I’m inspired by the innovation happening across the sector. Nonprofits are reorganizing, forming new partnerships, and finding creative ways to stay resilient. We may see more collaboration and consolidation, but not collapse — and that gives me tremendous hope. There’s a shared determination, both in business and philanthropy, to evolve together and continue supporting the work that matters most.