The Business of Giving

The United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world, and this corruption is determining the shape of our government and affecting all levels of society. This is a topic of a brand-new book by prizewinning journalist Sarah Chayes titled On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake.

Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound, and it's increasingly difficult to know what's true and who to believe. What we could all use is a field guide and, thankfully, my next guest has provided us with one. He is Jevin West, Director of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, and Co-author of Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World.

With the pressures, stresses and uncertainties of the current moment, emotional intelligence has never been more important. And it's a pleasure to have with us today the foremost expert in the field. He is Dr. Marc Brackett, the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Author of Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help our Kids, Ourselves, and our Society Thrive.

It was some 33 years ago that Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, and his wife, Helen started the Walton Family Foundation. It has gone on to be one of the most highly regarded and thoughtful family foundations in the country, with three major areas of focus and a never-ending commitment to learn and get better. And it's a pleasure to have with us Caryl Stern, the Executive Director of the Walton Family Foundation.

Have you read and studied and thought about what you need to do to be a more effective leader? My next guest suggests that a good place to start would be thinking a bit less about you and more about the people around you. She is Anne Morriss, Executive Founder of The Leadership Consortium and Co-author of Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You.

Every day, we make hundreds of decisions. Although many of these choices don't seem to contain an ethical component, we would be well-served to examine that carefully. In so doing, we just might find ourselves doing more good and creating greater value for the world around us. This is the subject of a new book by award-winning scholar and Harvard Business School Professor Max Bazerman titled Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness.

When a society becomes as polarized and, in many ways, dysfunctional, as America has become, there comes a point when more and more citizens begin to look around and wonder: Is there a better way? My next guest answers that with an emphatic "Yes!" and has started a movement where citizens committed to finding solutions can work together to address our biggest challenges. He is Bill Shireman, the CEO of Future 500 and Co-author of the just released book In This Together: How Republicans, Democrats, Capitalists, and Activists are Uniting to Tackle Climate Change and More

Philanthropy can only be as effective as the ecosystem in which it operates, whether that's a community, the nation, or the world, and those ecosystems are under tremendous stress at the moment. So, to help provide us some context to better understand what is happening. It's a pleasure to have with us a person who's a master of connecting dots that help explain where we are. She's Anne-Marie Slaughter, author, professor, and the CEO of New America, an action tank dedicated to renewing the promise of America.

And it's indeed a pleasure for me to welcome to the show the Chief Executive Officer of one of the eight semi-finalists of the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition. She is Beverley Postma, the CEO of HarvestPlus

And this evening’s semi-finalist is the Human Diagnosis Project, also referred to as Human Dx. And here to tell us about it is their President and CEO, Jay Komarneni.