The Charity Charge Show - Nonprofit Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Simplifying Nonprofit Finances with Purpose-Built Software – A Conversation with Joe Scarano of Araize Jul 15, 2025

Show notes

In a recent episode of The Charity Charge Show, host Stephen Garten sat down with Joe Scarano, the founder of Araizeand creator of FastFund, a cloud-based nonprofit financial software platform. With over three decades of experience in the nonprofit tech space, Joe brings deep insight into what makes nonprofit financial operations distinct—and how purpose-built tools can make all the difference.

Joe and Stephen also explored the incredible diversity within the nonprofit world—from small community organizations to large institutions with complex financial structures. Despite their differences, they all share the need for better back-office systems that are affordable, intuitive, and mission-aligned.

Key Takeaways from the Episode:

✅ Araize’s FastFund software is built specifically for nonprofit accounting, payroll, and fundraising.
✅ It enables organizations to produce FASB-compliant financial reports and segregate funds properly.
✅ SaaS offers reliability, security, and access flexibility for nonprofit teams.
✅ Araize provides free onboarding and live support from experts in nonprofit finance.
✅ Effective financial systems help nonprofits build donor trust and long-term sustainability.

About Charity Charge:

Charity Charge is a financial technology company serving the nonprofit sector. From the Charity Charge Nonprofit Credit Card to bookkeeping, gift card disbursements, and state compliance, we help mission-driven organizations streamline operations and stay financially strong. Learn more at charitycharge.com.

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About Charity Charge

Charity Charge is a financial technology company serving the nonprofit sector. From the Charity Charge Nonprofit Credit Card to bookkeeping, gift card disbursements, and state compliance, we help mission-driven organizations streamline operations and stay financially strong. Learn more at charitycharge.com.

Unlocking the Power of Google Ad Grants for Nonprofits - Abby James of Nonprofit Megaphone Jul 08, 2025

Show notes

In this conversation, Stephen Garten and Abby James discuss the importance of Google Ad Grants for nonprofits, how Nonprofit Megaphone helps organizations leverage this program, and the impact of AI on nonprofit marketing. They explore various strategies for maximizing the $10,000 monthly grant, share success stories from different nonprofits, and emphasize the need for effective content and user journeys to convert leads into supporters. Abby also explains the business model of Nonprofit Megaphone and the importance of maintaining eligibility for the Google Ad Grant.

Takeaways

Nonprofits can access $10,000 monthly in Google Ads for free.
Google Ad Grants help nonprofits increase visibility and donor acquisition.
Content on the nonprofit's website is crucial for ad performance.
AI is changing the landscape of digital marketing for nonprofits.
Successful nonprofits often require multiple engagements before donations.
Nonprofit Megaphone manages Google Ad Grants for various organizations.
Effective marketing strategies include understanding audience needs.
Tracking conversions is essential for measuring success.
Nonprofits should focus on user journeys to convert visitors.
Maintaining eligibility for the Google Ad Grant requires adherence to performance standards.

About Charity Charge:

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Transforming Medical Debt Relief with Jared Walker - Founder of Dollar For May 07, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of the Charity Charge Show we chat with Jared Walker, the founder of Dollar For, to discuss the organization's mission to alleviate medical debt through a comprehensive database of hospital charity care policies.

He explains how Dollar Four automates the application process for patients, the challenges of funding through philanthropy, and the importance of partnerships in expanding their reach. The conversation also touches on the legal aspects of medical debt, the potential for new revenue models, and the future vision for the organization.

Takeaways

Dollar Four created a database of every hospital in the country.
The organization eliminated $6.9 million in medical debt in April.
Funding is fully through philanthropy, with no earned revenue model.
The impact of Dollar Four is measurable and clear to donors.
Hospitals are motivated to avoid bad press regarding charity care.
Partnerships with other organizations can enhance outreach.
There is a significant amount of medical debt within communities.
The organization aims to enforce policies that hospitals are required to have.
Focus on providing value to the community to attract donors.
Future growth plans include raising $20 million over the next four years.

About Dollar For

Dollar For is a national non-profit organization dedicated to tackling the widespread issue of medical debt in the United States. Recognizing that medical debt is a leading cause of financial hardship and even bankruptcy for millions, they focus on a solution that often goes unnoticed and underutilized: hospital charity care.

Their core mission is to make charity care – which nonprofit hospitals are mandated by the Affordable Care Act to provide to lower-income patients – known, easy to access, and fairly applied. Dollar For acts as an advocate for patients, empowering them to navigate the often complex process of applying for financial assistance.

They achieve this through a multi-pronged approach:

Direct Patient Service: Utilizing technology, Dollar For has developed a system that includes a custom database of hospital policies, a simple eligibility screener, automated application completion, and patient advocates who guide individuals through the process. This direct support has resulted in significant medical debt relief for thousands of patients.
Systemic Change Advocacy: Beyond individual cases, Dollar For actively works to hold hospitals accountable and push for broader policy changes. They leverage media attention and their unique understanding of both the written policies and their real-world application to inform policy and advocate for improvements in charity care access. Their efforts have already influenced regulations and hospital practices across several states.

In essence, Dollar For bridges the gap between patients struggling with medical bills and the often-obscure avenue of charity care. By simplifying the application process and advocating for systemic improvements, they strive to alleviate the financial burden of medical crises and ensure that a health emergency doesn't lead to financial ruin. Their work has demonstrably reduced stress, improved health outcomes, and enhanced financial stability for the patients they serve.

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EP 102 Lisa Van Dusen | Executive Director, Palo Alto Community Fund Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 102 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Lisa Van Dusen, Executive Director of Palo Alto Community Fund, whose mission is to focus on the unique needs of our community and channel charitable giving of local donors to effective organizations that improve the quality of life for everyone in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

Stephen and Lisa Van Dusen talk about innovating quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic and trust based philanthropy.

Van Dusen has dedicated her career to helping build thriving communities through philanthropy, advocacy, entrepreneurship and media, bringing more than 30 years of cross sector experience to the Palo Alto Community Fund.

Previous to joining the Palo Alto Community Fund, Van Dusen was Chief Relationship Officer at Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (SV2) where she led innovation and learning initiatives that deepened awareness, engagement and giving to address social and environmental challenges in Silicon Valley and globally.

Her accomplishments include expanding and diversifying SV2’s donor community, introducing field-leading impact investing and spearheading advocacy program offerings.

Van Dusen, who has lived in Palo Alto for 35 years, has held a variety of professional and civic leadership positions, including launching two groundbreaking local media ventures—Cable Communications Cooperative of Palo Alto (Cable Co-op) and Palo Alto Online.

She revived and co-led Leadership Palo Alto and created and hosted First Person, a video interview series featuring Silicon Valley trailblazers. In addition to her experience as a social entrepreneur, Van Dusen brings expertise in sales, marketing and communications with the Palo Alto Weekly and other organizations.

She has served on a variety of nonprofit boards including, Palo Alto Art Center, Planned Parenthood (Golden Gate), WINGS Guatemala and in numerous civic leadership roles. She has been recognized extensively, including as a Silicon Valley Women of Influence, TEDx speaker, Leadership Midpeninsula Senior Fellow and California College of the Arts Leading by Design Fellow.

Lisa Van Dusen on trust based philanthropy:

In June 2019, our board signed off on a strategic plan that was committing to trust based philanthropy meaning that instead of the dollars that were raised each year going into our endowment that the default would be for the funds to go out the door and pass through grants to nonprofit organizations in our community.

Our donors could still specify if they wanted their contribution to go to our endowment but the default would be to get the money out to the organizations making a difference in our community.

We believe this would lead to a deeper connection and knowledge exchange with our community, organizations, and other leaders, to connect us with what is going on. I also see it as investing in ourselves as an organization, which I think is really significant.

We had great support for this initiative and met our three year plan goal in the first year. Trust base philanthropy is at it's core saying, "here is money, we trust you as an organization to know how to deploy it best." If that is to pay your staff, then that is what you should do, or it's to keep your lights on, use the money for whatever you need.

With our strategic plan we are fundamentally choosing, who we who we are betting on as an organization, and trusting them to do what they need.

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EP 101 Georges Benjamin | Executive Director, American Public Health Association Oct 27, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 101 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of American Public Health Association (APHA), whose mission is to improve the health of the public and achieve equity in health status.

Stephen and Georges Benjamin talk about what APHA learned from the COVID pandemic, APHA's role in shaping American healthcare policy over the past 150 years, and the importance of having financial reserves in place.

Georges C. Benjamin is known as one of the nation’s most influential physician leaders because he speaks passionately and eloquently about the health issues having the most impact on our nation today.

From his firsthand experience as a physician, he knows what happens when preventive care is not available and when the healthy choice is not the easy choice. As executive director of APHA since 2002, he is leading the Association’s push to make America the healthiest nation.

Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of American Public Health Association, on the importance of having financial reserves:

We try to be fiscally conservative and have multiple revenue streams and live with in our resources each year. Of course COVID is stressor on those financial goals. That's one of the reasons we have reserves is so that you can go into them when times are hard. The last couple of years, we've had to go into reserves a little bit, because times are hard.

But we were able to do that because every year we were able to take any surplus revenues that came in and put them in the bank. Having a good savings account is important. However, I also think it's important that people figure out what's important for you to do and focus your mission - then put your resources behind that focused mission.

For us, if it hurts people or kills people, the public health community has a role in it, but we can't solve all the problems. Instead we try to solve the problems that we think are important for us directly and then we partner with others who have the strength to tackle other problems.

We don't really care who gets the credit, we care that the mission gets done. We hold ourselves accountable to the mission getting done as our main measure of success.

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EP 100 Grant Trahant | Founder of Causeartist and ReFiJobs Oct 12, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 100 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Grant Trahant, Founder of Causeartist and RefiJobs. His mission is to show that everyone — from shoppers and professionals to entrepreneurs and investors — can change the world by making decisions that benefit the people and places around them.

Interested in listening to the full episode and hearing more from other nonprofits? Check out more episodes here.

Stephen and Grant Trahant talk about what it takes to build a business or nonprofit from the ground up, reflect on what Stephen's learned from 100 conversations, and the unifying power of listening to and spending time with others.

Since 2013, Causeartist has been read in 150+ countries. Over this time Grant has interviewed 700+ social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and impact ventures from around the world.

The mission has always been to highlight innovations within ethical fashion, regenerative farming, climate tech, fair trade products, impact investing, and sustainable travel.

He also hosts the Disruptors for GOOD podcast and the Investing in Impact podcast.

Connect with Grant on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Grant on listening to others and seeing what truly unites us:

One advantage I get from talking to people around the world is that I experience that no matter where you are, no matter where you live, people still want the same thing for themselves, for their communities, and for their kids.

Whatever it may be their level of passion is the same. Whether they're from India, Southeast Asia, Delaware, Toronto, or Mexico City, wherever it may be, everybody's problems are pretty similar.

It could be dealing with mental health or dealing with economic issues, although different places approach problems and issues differently there are always people trying to solve them.

We're unified in trying to solve problems together on all continents and cities around the world.

About Causeartist

causeartist – [cause-artist] noun. a person who uses their talents and skills to impact the world.

Since 2013, Causeartist has been read in 150+ countries. Over this time I have interviewed 700+ impact entrepreneurs, impact investors, and impact ventures from around the world.

Causeartist is a global community of social entrepreneurs, builders, creators, and conscious consumers, who believe business can positively impact the world.

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EP 99 Vicki Burkhart | CEO, The More Than Giving Co. Sep 28, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 99 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Vicki Burkhart, CEO of The More Than Giving Co., whose mission is to give nonprofits with visionary leaders and compelling missions an affordable, on-demand staffing solution to supplement the bandwidth and skillsets of their volunteer force.

Stephen and Vicki Burkhart talk about More Than Giving's work with nonprofits to provide the staffing they need, the importance of a living strategic plan, and the four critical things for nonprofit success.

Vicki Burkhart is founder and CEO of the More Than Giving Company. She has 30+ years of experience in the nonprofit arena as an Executive Director, nonprofit executive and consultant.

After earning a B.A. and M.Ed. from Penn State, Vicki advanced to hold leadership positions in development and donor relations, including serving as the VP of Advancement at the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine. At the same time, she was serving several nonprofits as their Executive Director.

Collectively, these roles gave her extensive, hands-on experience with major gift cultivation (including personally closing multimillion-dollar gifts), board development and strategic planning, membership development, organizational development, and volunteer management.

In 1999, Vicki founded More Than Giving with the goal of delivering innovative solutions to help more volunteer-driven nonprofits achieve sustainability and growth.

Vicki on the four critical things for nonprofit success

There are four things that I think are critical to a successful nonprofit:

A strategic plan - It's usually the first thing I ask for when I engage with a new client. All of the organizations that I lead, as an Executive Director have active strategic plans. By active I don't mean strategic plans that you do and put on the shelf and look at you know once a year. I mean, strategic plans that actually navigate the direction and path for the nonprofit, where you make decisions based on your plan, you look at revenue generation and leadership succession based on your plan. The strategic plan is a document that I think no matter how large or small the nonprofit is, is critical to that success.
Finding the right board - I intentionally use the word right because boards that I have worked with evolve, just like the nonprofit evolves. The founding board may be replaced by what I like to call the transition board a few years in, this transition board can then allow you to start separating operations from corporate responsibility. It defines the role of the board and the board's committees a little bit more and that of what staff does. Then the transition board shifts as the organization matures and starts to move into a more corporate board. It's important for nonprofit organizations to spend time finding the right people to sit on each of these boards. For the founders board looks very different than a corporate board.
Maintaining and building capacity - It's important that a nonprofit has the people and resources to support the growth of the organization. This gets back to, our paradigm shift in staffing and being able to have the right technology in the right infrastructure needed to support the growth of the organization.
Internal support - With the right internal support your professionals and your volunteers can focus on the work that they need to do. That's where you want someone who's sitting on your board making visits to prospective donors and you don't want them sitting in the office just doing light bookkeeping or sending out acknowledgement letters. Organizations really have to look at, if you get this much of volunteer time, how can that best be used?

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EP 98 Nancy Long | Executive Director, 501 Commons Sep 14, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 98 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Nancy Long, Executive Director of 501 Commons, whose mission is to serve nonprofits as experts, innovators, and partners.

Their passion is to amplify the strengths of nonprofits—so ALL people and communities flourish. Stephen and Nancy Long talk about the resilience of nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic, 501 Commons recent reports regarding nonprofit employee compensation, and common mistake nonprofits make with grants.

Nancy Long is the Executive Director of 501 Commons. 501 Commons addresses the national problem of nonprofits having limited access to the expertise they need to optimize their organization. The organization provides consulting, contracted services, and other forms of support.

This allows organizations to have the technology, data, management, fundraising, finance, and human resources expertise they need.

Before becoming executive director of 501 Commons, Nancy worked in health care as the Vice President of Strategy and Organizational Development at Group Health Cooperative. Nancy was on the health care reform policy staff for the Washington Health Services Commission.

She served as the Director of Marketing for the Basic Health Plan. She developed groundbreaking research to promote health insurance to diverse communities and implemented community-based outreach that resulted in unprecedented participation and diverse enrollment.

As the Director of Quality for the Washington State Hospital Association, she represented hospitals on regulatory matters and led a quality of care research project with rural hospitals.

As the Director of Marketing & Community Services at Pacific Medical, she led the effort to create the Cross-Cultural Health Care Program, which has done breakthrough work on culturally and linguistically accessible health care.

Nancy has a BA in social psychology (University of Texas), and a master’s from the Evans School (University of Washington), where she was also a lecturer, teaching nonprofit leadership and management.

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EP 97 John Lux | Executive Director, Film Florida Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

John LuxIn Episode 97 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to John Lux, Executive Director of Film Florida, a not-for-profit entertainment production association for Florida's film, TV, production & digital media industry.

Stephen and John Lux talk about John's unique career path, Film Florida's mission to support the film industry in Florida, and the challenges in showing value to individual members in a large membership based organization.

John has been the Executive Director for Film Florida since June 2016 and manages the day-to-day operations of the organization after spending 20 years working in the industry.

John is responsible for Film Florida operations, marketing, membership recruitment and finance. In addition to his other responsibilities for Film Florida, John is a social media enthusiast and has been handling the Film Florida social media strategy and day to day management of the website since 2014.

In previous roles John has been responsible for operations, finance and marketing positions including day-to-day operations (including all project proposals and budgets), finance (POs, APs, ARs, cash flow planning, etc.), and marketing strategies (social media, award submissions, press releases, communication with media, etc.).

John started in operations for the Walt Disney Company and helped Orlando-based IDEAS transition from Disney to an independent corporation and was instrumental in the transformation and growth of the company for 18 years.

After graduating from Purdue University, John worked in the live entertainment industry managing a staff of 300+ for an outdoor music and entertainment venue in the Chicago area before moving to Florida to join Disney where he received Disney’s rare and highly respected Partners In Excellence award.

His strong Chicago roots are reflected in his undying passion for college football, especially his alma mater, the Purdue Boilermakers and his home town teams, Blackhawks, Bears, Bulls, White Sox, Cubs and Northwestern University.

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EP 96 Jeff Mazur | Executive Director, LaunchCode Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 96 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Jeff Mazur, Executive Director of LaunchCode, whose mission is offering free tech education and job placement opportunities to bring new people from all backgrounds into the tech field and reshape the way employers think about hiring. Stephen and Jeff Mazur talk about LaunchCode's impact on providing people with the skills to enter a career in tech, creating a sustainable revenue stream to facilitate growth within a nonprofit, and the importance of embracing a learning mindset.

Jeff Mazur is an experienced executive with a proven record of leading nonprofit organizations through growth and strategic change. Presently heading LaunchCode, a high-impact workforce and economic development organization with an acute focus on helping regions flourish via technology education, civic partnership and corporate engagement.

Jeff Mazur on embracing a learning mindset:

What I've learned is that the longer I do this work, the less and less I know, and that that's actually a good thing that I should want to be true. I want to be comfortable with not knowing as a leader, because as we do more, and as we grow, there are new things that I ultimately am responsible for making decisions about that are entirely unexplored in the prior history of the organization and my tenure with it. So I don't know the answers to those new things but that's okay. Learning the answers and coming up with what we think as a team would be the best solutions is the highest order work that I can do in the organization. That was honestly somewhat surprising to discover, because the assumption might be "Well, in the first year, you're going to find some things that you never did before. In the second year, you're going to kind of get it down. Then the third or fourth or fifth year it's all old hat" And But I've found that not to be true. If it were true, it would be a signal to me that I, and we as leaders, weren't pushing the organization to do enough new things or to change itself and evolve or figure out how to test the edges of the space that we work in.

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