110. Philanthropy 2.0

[Lars Peter Nissen] (0:55 - 2:53)

Humanitarian action takes place at the edge of chaos. And to find the right answers, we need smart, honest conversations. That's what this podcast is about.

Welcome to Trumanitarian. I'm your host Lars Peter Nissen. In the aftermath of the US funding freeze, a lot of attention has turned to the role billionaires can play in terms of covering the gap.

To be honest, I don't know that much about philanthropy and I've never given it that much attention. But a couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference in Doha and listened to a panel of philanthropists. It was the Gates Foundation.

It was the Clinton Initiative. And then there was a very different voice. Maya Gombachara, who is this week's guest on Trumanitarian, spoke with different words, with a different tone, with a different openness compared to the philanthropic supertankers she was surrounded by.

And the tone in what she said, the words she chose, just the way she showed up, indicated to me that there was a different philosophy underpinning her understanding of philanthropy. And I was really eager to unpack that. So that's what her and I do in this week's episode.

It's really interesting to hear how Maya thinks about her role and how the money she can donate, which is small compared to some of the bigger initiatives, but the difference they can make and how she tries to amplify the impact of that money. As always, we appreciate your feedback. We also appreciate donations.

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We still love you. Just listen and enjoy the conversation. Maya Ghosh Bichara, welcome to Trumanitarian.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (2:54 - 2:56)

Thank you so much, Lars. I'm really happy to be here.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (2:57 - 3:23)

We met at a conference in Doha a couple of weeks ago. You were on a panel with other philanthropists and there was something about the way you spoke at that panel that really hit me and made me reflect on the role that philanthropy can play in this difficult moment for humanitarian action. So I'm very happy that we have an hour now to get to know each other a bit better and unpack your approach to philanthropy.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (3:24 - 3:33)

My pleasure. I'm so glad that resonated with you. And yeah, I'm curious to know what you want to dig into because I think there's so much there that I'm excited to talk about and also get your perspective on.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (3:34 - 3:41)

Let's start with your origin story. What's your background and what is the road you traveled into the philanthropy space?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (3:41 - 7:38)

Yeah, totally. So I'm seeking a couple of steps back. I'm Lebanese, Brazilian originally.

I'm based in Riyadh now. I was born in the US. I grew up abroad.

So I've quite a multicultural background. I think since I was a very, very young girl, I was always passionate about purpose and impact, but I always knew I wanted to operate at the intersection of profit and purpose. And so my career took me to more of a generalist, I'd say, beginning because I wasn't quite sure how to really intersect those two.

And I think it's not until quite recently that there have been meaningful opportunities to bring those two together, profit and purpose. I think they have largely existed in silos. So I was a management consultant for the first few years of my career.

While I was there, I started to dip my toe in more purpose-driven work by leading pro bono projects for McKinsey, where I was at the time with a few clients. And then I joined McKinsey's social sector practice, which was nascent, but ended up being established while I was there, which was a lovely synchronicity. So that was kind of my first step into the kind of purpose-driven space, but with a profit lens.

And then I joined the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. So the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, if you haven't heard of it yet, is quite a novel model of philanthropy. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, to really figure out how to harness the power of technology for social good and really leverage the kind of caliber of tech talent they can attract and harness it towards the biggest social problems of today. So they're very focused on science, education, affordable housing, which we can get into. But essentially, I think that experience for me was incredibly formative. So I joined them.

I was there for the first five years, essentially helping build out the team in a range of different roles. And I think that it gave me a big appreciation for the role philanthropy has played and then opportunities for philanthropy to show up differently. So one of the many qualities that Mark and Priscilla possess as philanthropists, from my opinion, is that they're very risk-loving and they're willing to really innovate and push the envelope.

So our task working at CZI at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was really to try to figure out, okay, let's build on what's worked in philanthropy, but really try to innovate and change and experiment with the aspects that have not felt aligned. So that was very formative for me. And then in terms of my role as a philanthropist, that really, I would say, emerged quite organically.

ed to London. This is back in: 2020

And so when I moved to London, started to figure out how to get involved in the mental health space, started to really expand my network and community. I'm from Lebanon originally, as I'd mentioned. So I spent a lot of time in the mental health ecosystem, also the refugee ecosystem, which is another topic I care about.

And my entry into philanthropy, Lars, was honestly meeting incredible local leaders in Lebanon who have done amazing, I mean, completely exceptional work against all odds, who have displayed an enormous level of resourcefulness and resilience in the face of, in Lebanon, a number of crises, whether it's economic, political, health, with COVID, security crisis with the wars. They had really navigated so much. And despite that, had found ways to establish and grow incredibly impactful nonprofits that were operating in really innovative ways.

So I was very inspired by those people and was really motivated and moved to support their work. And that's really where my philanthropy journey started as kind of a backer of those leaders locally.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (7:38 - 8:33)

That's such an interesting story. And for me, it's a story with a massive contrast or maybe even tension built in. I love the way you describe the clarity of thought around profit and purpose and wanting to marry the two.

That is just fantastic. And then you talk about your work with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and your passion for mental health. And that's where my mind, of course, goes.

I am sure that Mark Zuckerberg is everything you describe as a philanthropist, that he gives space, that he's willing to take risks, all of those things. I'm also fairly sure that Mark Zuckerberg, the businessman, has had quite a direct impact on a number of young people's mental health because of the way Meta's apps addict them to being online. And so I guess my question is, how do those things fit together?

-: 10:25

Yeah, that's a very good question. I'll say a couple of things just structurally to kind of ground the conversation. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is completely separate from Meta, so it's a totally independent entity.

There's absolutely no connection whatsoever because it's Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan's personal capital. Of course, the source of their capital might have come from Meta, but I just wanted to mention that explicitly. And the Chan Zuckerberg doesn't work in mental health, which is actually one of the reasons why I transitioned to move to London to work in mental health.

That's not a focus area for them right now. The point that you bring up more broadly, I think, is a really important one. And I do feel that, you know, I think that I hope that we're moving in a direction collectively of greater kind of integrity across profit and purpose.

And I think that it's a very hard needle to thread. And I would say, for example, with technology, and I'll speak to AI, for example, I feel like there's so much about AI that we don't know, if that makes sense. We don't know what we don't know.

And so I think there's a level of humility, but also caution that needs to come into stewarding AI. And I think I imagine, and I can't speak for anyone, but I would imagine that's how the advent of social media felt, right? And I'm not speaking to Meta specifically, but I think social media overall started off with many benefits.

t was only really invented in: 2012

And so I hope that there will be, you know, structures in place to help manage the externalities that social media in general has on people, especially mental health, right?

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 10:25

Thank you for that, Maya. It's, of course, very unfair to hold you accountable for whatever Meta runs around the world doing, but I really appreciated your reflections on how that aspect of profit and purpose fits together for you. Now let's turn to the work you do as a philanthropist.

What do you actually do when you engage with these amazing people you meet? What kind of partnership do you build with them and how do you go about that?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 10:54

I think first and foremost, I really believe in relationship building philanthropy, driven philanthropy. And so I really believe in finding leaders you trust and backing them from behind. So, you know, that's actually a principle I learned at the initiative was leading from behind and really making sure that it's a community first approach.

So what I try to do with leaders that I'm really inspired by who are doing meaningful work is, A, get to know them as a person, like really do, and try to understand what motivates them, what drives them, you know, what gives them the immense passion that enables them to transcend what is often like incredibly difficult working circumstances. And then try to figure out what their challenges are. So often what I'll do, Lars, before investing is I will actually help kind of pull out my McKinsey chop, so to speak, and try to figure out, okay, what are like two or three challenges you're having and how can I help you?

And I'll see that as a way for that organization to get to know me and build trust with me, but also for me to get to know the organization, right? But beyond, let's say the veil that typically exists in a classic donor grantee dynamic. And that is the way that I typically like to work to really make sure that we're level set and we're eyes wide open.

And then from there, it gives me a better sense for how I can be most helpful beyond my giving. So to orient you, you know, I'm a very, very small philanthropist relative to larger foundations out there. I see my value as being not just, you know, the financial and monetary support, but also the thought partnership, the strategic partnership, whatever it is that the organization might need.

I really try to meet each org where they are in that moment. So that's how I think about crafting the journey with, you know, the nonprofits that I work with.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 12:41

You keep on saying, I. Is that because it's only you or do you have a team around you? What does the organization look like?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 12:48

It's just me right now. I have an assistant who's lovely, but in terms of the actual work with the nonprofit for now, it's just me at the moment.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 12:56

And so you develop a relationship or a partnership with the civil society leaders and because you're a philanthropist, at some stage, I guess, money comes on the table. And so what kind of financing is it that you provide? Maybe we can start with size.

How much money do you put on the table and how much do you actually give away every year?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 13:18

I'm a very small philanthropist. So I dish out about $25,000 a year. So it's very micro.

But what I try to do is I try to make sure the capital is catalytic. Right. So, for example, I was working with a nonprofit and they focus on using participatory theater as a way to drive healing and self-determination in some of the most difficult or under-resourced areas in the Middle East, especially working with refugees.

So I'd been working with them and I realized actually they had really only been focused on working with children, working with women, both incredibly important populations, of course. But one of the things I think is underserved and errors and it's underserved in mental health is working with men. And so, for example, I helped fund a pilot to work with men to create a proof of concept for them to go and seek greater funding to really build out a bigger program around men.

Right. So catalytic in that it's more risk loving. It's more experimental.

Depending on the results of the pilot with men, maybe it won't work out. Right. It won't go anywhere.

But that's an example. The second one is working with an organization called Yusur. I sit on their board and we work with refugee communities and incredibly, incredibly challenging circumstances.

And something that I learned working with the head of schools across Lebanon is that children with special needs, so essentially differently abled children, are really left behind because they're not even admissible to most refugee or UN backed schools because of their needs. So I sponsored basically a program to do more of a feasibility assessment and seed a pilot to train teachers to be able to provide a certain level of instruction and care for these special needs students so that they have an opportunity to be served by the schools. So, again, it's micro.

Right. But I like to think of it as catalytic and really helping open up a broader set of pooled funds or maybe a bigger program.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 15:18

Your approach, is that your unique selling point, if you want to find the blind spots and shed some light of it, maybe not with a lot of money, but with a lot of attention and then try to multiply the investment you make.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 15:30

Exactly. That's a beautiful way to summarize it. My intention is always really to find high leverage points, so to speak, from an impact standpoint, but that are also financially sustainable.

Right. So that it's creating an opening that is then going to create the path for more sustainable funding, whether it's institutional or bigger donors, as opposed to me, quote unquote, plugging the hole, right, every year with smaller grants.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 15:55

And so what's your role in accompanying your partners in terms of opening doors to bigger funding opportunities? How do you do that?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 16:02

Yeah, that's a great question. I wish it were more systematic. I think as of right now, so with many nonprofits either sit on the board or I'm just kind of a very close friend, so to speak, and supporter, it's much more opportunistic.

So depending on where the organization is, I'll often try to connect organizations with other individual donors like myself or with grant opportunities that come up that might not already be on their radar. So what I often find and something I found in philanthropy, working in philanthropy, was that usually traditional foundations donate and support the same organizations, right, over and over again in their existing community. There isn't a lot of reaching beyond the comfort zone.

And so what I really try to do is bridge beyond existing networks, so between a philanthropy and between a nonprofit. So it's very opportunistic, but it's very much relationship driven and trying to kind of keep my ear out to opportunities and connect the dots as much as I can.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 17:00

So like, hey, Mark, what are you doing this weekend? Fancy a trip to Lebanon? I have some people you should meet.

Is it like that?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 17:09

Yeah, not exactly that, but in principle, you're spot on. Yes. And so the other thing I want to mention, Laura, is I think what's also really important for nonprofits is visibility and exposure.

And so for example, you know, the fora where you and I met at is a great opportunity for nonprofits to really share their work on a broader platform and increase their visibility, right, with organizations or individuals they wouldn't have otherwise connected to. So what I'll often do is if I'm invited to speak, I'll often offer it to a nonprofit instead, you know, if it's on, for example, mental health in Lebanon, as opposed to me speaking as a donor. I think that the leaders actually doing the work on the ground are far better versed than I am in being able to speak to that.

And more importantly, I think it also helps elevate their work and share it in the ways that it deserves to be shared.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 17:59

The way you work is very labor-intensive. You develop trust and empathize deeply with the people you work around you, I sense. And you don't do that just in a one-hour visit.

You need some serious face time with people to develop these relationships. At least that's my experience. How scalable is that way of working?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 18:23

That's a good question. So when I think about scale, I think there are three aspects of it for me. So the first is I do advise foundations.

So for example, I'm an advisor of the Inner Foundation, which is a Sweden-based foundation focused on mental health. And what I try to do through that work, Lars, is really instill and share some of these principles, philanthropic principles, to guide their work, right? So the Inner Foundation has pledged $100 million to mental health.

Their work is much more scalable than mine. But the way I try to scale what I do is to really influence and support and guide the work of others who have a greater opportunity to allocate capital. So that's one pillar.

The second is for me, my intention and my hope is to eventually establish my own philanthropic entity. I don't want to call it a foundation. I don't know what it might look like.

But at that point, when I hopefully have kind of a broader capital base to deploy, to be able to establish and integrate these principles that I have learned in this micro way, on the ground in a very applied fashion, but on a bigger scale. So that's the second piece. And then I would say the third for me is often what I'll try to do is whenever I'm supporting a nonprofit, rather than, again, just plugging the hole, if there's a challenge, I really like to help, maybe this is my consulting background, help build a system to address that challenge, as opposed to just solving it in the moment, right?

So maybe it's like, oh, actually we need to hire somebody for this role. Or maybe there's this process that's missing. Or maybe, and this has happened twice, the role of the executive director is no longer fit for purpose.

We need to fundamentally rethink that leader and hire in an operational right hand. So I try to think about how to work my way out of a job, let's say, so that over time with a given nonprofit, I'm less and less involved from a time perspective.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 20:19

With respect to the second point you mentioned, what's your thinking around instilling that way of working into a big organization? I'm sure you're quite familiar with the work of big philanthropics, and I'm sure you see some of them work in a way that you would like to work. I also am sure that you see some that are more bureaucratic or more path dependent, I guess.

And so what is key for you when you move from this very individual Maya hands-on working directly with the partners to some kind of institution's bigger system? What will you be keeping your eye on to make sure that the shop Maya builds actually reflect the way you think it should work?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 20:58

Such a good question. Thank you, Lars. You're doing my homework for me.

These are the kind of questions I need to be thinking about.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 21:03

Yeah, I'll send you the bill later.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 21:06

Please do. I think the first is having a set of principles and practices that we, we as in the future organization, I would establish abide by. So for example, I'm a huge fan and supporter of general operating grants that are multi-year.

I think that to me, that might seem simple, but I think beneath that are a lot of philanthropic principles that are important to me, right? It's trust-based philanthropy, right? It's really exemplifies a certain level of humility, right?

An acknowledgement that we as philanthropists don't know best actually the leaders on the ground do. It's an acknowledgement of the dynamic circumstances that a lot of these leaders have to navigate and the ability to trust them to flex as they see fit, et cetera. So I think the first would be having a set of philanthropic practices and processes that are really kind of universal and the default, let's say, of course, exceptions need to be made always, but as a default practice.

And I would want to make sure that those are really driven by ultimately the needs of not just the communities that we serve, which I think are of course, our primary constituents, but also equally the nonprofits that we serve that I think the health of the nonprofit itself is often overlooked. The second thing is the idea of kind of blended finance. And this is something that more and more nonprofits or sorry, philanthropy is acknowledged.

So like the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, Omidyar network, Emerson collective, the inner foundation, these organizations acknowledge that it's no, we're no longer living in a kind of binary paradigm, right? Of a for-profit or nonprofit that there's an opportunity to bring more innovative financing mechanisms to bear to help different solutions scale. So I'd love to make sure that that's something that flexibility is built into the organization and really is able to meet each organization where they are also mentioned.

This is something that comes from my day job, which I forgot to bring up in my intro, which is as a health technology investor, what I'll often see are incredible companies that are doing really important work. They're just not venture backable and they get stuck in this grant middle ground where they've, you know, they, they, they see it as either being a venture backable business or nonprofit business or nothing. And the reality is there are so many other solutions in between that can help them reach their goals without necessarily driving the pretty let's say, let's be honest, unrealistic level of speed and scale that venture investors expect of organizations and companies.

So I'd say that's a second one. I think the third is also just the people. I really would want to foster a team that is curious and humble and agile.

And ultimately, you know, I mean, we're seeing this right now in this ecosystem, the paradigm is shifting so quickly Lars, and I think it will continue to. And I think it's really important that there be a team that's willing to constantly revisit our assumptions and revisit our perspective on how we're doing things to really make sure that it's, it's values aligned and values driven.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 24:18

I like those. I get almost the sense that you're trying to take the power out of the money relationship to, to make sure that it doesn't get in the way of the partnership.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 24:29

I think also it's, it's about remembering that we as philanthropists don't have the answers and, and really the solutions lie in the hands of the communities that we serve. So I think there's a humility embedded in that. And I should also mention, you know, I'm very passionate about participatory grantmaking and these grantmaking mechanisms that challenge the, I'd say status quo of it being, you know, one grantmaker in an office somewhere making a call, but rather involving the actual organizations doing the work in the grantmaking decisions, right.

Or even having like youth advisory boards or constituent advisory boards that make the decisions. So the actual end users, so to speak, making the decisions about which nonprofits should get funded. So I think there's a lot that can be disrupted there.

And it just requires a reminder that ultimately we don't have the answers. We're just there to enable the, you know, facilitation of the solution, so to speak, or the scale of the solutions.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 25:28

How does your way of thinking, this approach that you have just outlined, how does that fit into the overall philanthropy ecosystem? Are you like the radical leftist coming in to disrupt big philanthropy and think radically different? Or is what you propose sort of generally accepted among philanthropists and we need to improve our practice and we'll get there?

What's the discussion like among philanthropists?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 25:56

I'll speak from my vantage point with some of my peers who operate similarly to me as individual philanthropists. We come from the private sector. And so we bring a lot of private sector principles that challenge some of the status quo, but that also try to figure out ways to merge and find superior hybrid solutions with the status quo.

I'd say, you know, I think Mackenzie Scott has been one of the most powerful disruptors in philanthropy in the last five years. Her approach to creating, you know, giving pretty sizable general operating, no-strings-attached grants to nonprofits with very, very little reporting requirements, it completely shook up the system. And a lot of the early results from that, and granted it's still early, right?

So I just want to caveat that and underline that, have been really promising. And I think that that's really has caused a lot of individual philanthropists I've spoken to, to really question the traditional approach to philanthropy and really rethink how, let's say, quote unquote, burdensome a lot of philanthropy has traditionally been, right? It's been quite heavy handed in terms of reporting requirements, even the number of team members you need to be managing certain portfolios.

I think that Mackenzie Scott's ethos and her team's ethos has been a really healthy dose of reckoning and reconsideration. So I don't know how that's labeled so to speak, but I do think that quote unquote tech associated philanthropy, whether that's the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Emerson Collective, which is associated with Apple, right? Lauren Powell Jobs or Midiar Network.

These tech affiliated philanthropies, I think have been the most disruptive to this philanthropy space so far. And I'm hopeful that some of the ripple effects will actually be integrated in more established traditional philanthropy. That being said, I'll say one more thing, which is that we're seeing even more traditional philanthropy like the Ford Foundation, for example, moving towards just general operating support or the Rockefeller Foundation, which I worked with when I was at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, leaning into more peer-driven grant making or participatory grant making.

So you're seeing some small shifts, but I would say the disruptors are, at least the ones that I'm affiliated with or in touch with, are very much driven by tech.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 28:16

The next question I have is around, let's call it cutting out the middleman. The idea that you actually don't need a lot of really expensive expert opinion to be able to give money. You can actually say, I know these people well enough.

I overall trust what they're doing and their intent. They seem to be really good at what they do. So let's give them some flexibility they know best.

Now, I'd like to take it one step further and ask, what do you do in terms of ensuring that the trust and the flexibility and the freedom you give your partners, that they cascade that onto the people they serve, onto the populations they deliver services to?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 29:01

That's such a good question. That's a really great one. It's a great question.

I haven't approached it that intentionally top-down in the sense of cascading, but it's more so about, for me, embodying the trust that we have in leaders in the communities that we serve and not approaching them with a paternalistic approach. Let me give you an example. A non-profit that I've worked with for a while, one of the things I've been helping them with is finding greater sources of revenue generation so that they're not so dependent on donors.

I think that's been especially important over the past five months with a lot of the changes to USAID and global aid architecture. We've been exploring revenue generating activities. One of the ones we had discussed was we provide free mental health services in a local clinic.

Some of the community's members can afford it and others cannot. What we've decided to do was to essentially create tiered pricing based on ability to pay. When we were first talking about it with the group, people were like, okay, we're going to have these two assessments.

We're going to have an expert assess, and then we're going to have blah, blah, blah, and we're going to triangulate. Based on that, we'll figure out who can pay and who can't. I said, why are we complicating it?

Ultimately, we need to trust that the constituents that we're serving are going to respect our services and show up with a level of integrity so that if we say, hey, for our own financial sustainability, if you can afford this, please pay $5, $10, $15. We need to trust that they're going to respond accordingly. It was a big debate.

Ultimately, we implemented it in the way that I was suggesting, and it's been so smooth. A lot more people than we thought have paid, have been willing to pay with no questions asked. I think it's just more of a bottoms-up, principles-driven approach, I guess, Lars, to your question, which is just trusting and really being a co-creator with as opposed to a director or dictator of, if that makes sense.

I just wanted to add one nuance to what you said earlier. I'm all about trust-based philanthropy, but I also believe in co-creation. There's an age-old question in philanthropy about M&E, measurement and evaluation and reporting.

Often, I think we, as philanthropists, can get in over our head and developing these extremely elaborate theories of change and theories of action and these very complex multi-tiered KPIs and imposing them on the grantees so that they can feed into our frameworks in a way that's clean and enables us to report up. Ultimately, I think the most impactful productive thing is to actually co-create KPIs with nonprofits and say, okay, how do you measure success? What are the three or four things you track?

Really having that be nonprofit-driven. I just wanted to caveat what you said earlier. I think co-creation is also important.

There is a role to play for philanthropy in being a bit more active, but I think it needs to be more balanced. Then to your point about cascading, which is such a great one, and I would love to... I'm writing that down as my homework, so please do send me the bill afterwards for your advisory services.

That's a really good one, and I think that's a blind spot of mine that I'd love to think about.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 32:21

Well, I think you're being a little bit too tough on yourself. You've just given an excellent example of doing exactly what I asked you, and it made me think of exactly the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with you. There was something in the way you showed up in that panel, the words you used.

I can't remember exactly whether you set this out right, but I got the clear sense that you have an appetite for ambiguity or for empty spaces, letting people color outside the lines, not filling in all the blanks. Call it whatever you want, but there was just something in the way you spoke that I found really interesting, and I think you just explained that.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 32:58

I'm so glad you mentioned that because I think that's one of my lessons in this time really, in the past five months of 2025 that have felt very uncertain and very ambiguous, and I think what it's taught me and I think many other people is rather than trying to jump to a level of prediction or certainty, being able to sit in the ambiguity and kind of figure out, okay, what is it there to teach us? What is the pilot and experiment with now?

As things hopefully over time become clearer, it's been a big lesson of mine over the past few months, so I'm really encouraged to hear that that came through in the conversation a few weeks ago, and it's definitely a journey, an ongoing journey.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 33:47

Now if we look five years ahead, we know we have stormy weather on the horizon. We know climate change is going to create difficult situations for a lot of populations. The geopolitical situation looks very unstable in a number of different countries, and it is likely that we also will see a number of conflicts emerge and escalate, and so my question is what kind of, and I hesitate to use the word ecosystem because we use that and abuse that word so much, but let's say what kind of swarm of humanitarian actors do we need to meet this challenge in the future?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 34:28

I think that it looks like, I don't think the actual composition looks that different from today. I think what it requires is a big mindset evolution, let's say, not a shift but an expansion, to really think about a couple of things that I think have been missing from the solution. I think the first is how to not steer clear of the use of technology in advancing solutions, and I know it has many risks and we touched on those earlier, but I do think technology continues to be under leveraged in humanitarian contexts.

I think the second is to fundamentally reconsider the structural boundaries and limitations we've been placing on humanitarian actors and organizations and implementers. I think that we have this very rigid, archaic concept that you're either a non-profit or you're a for-profit, et cetera, et cetera. Ultimately, with the shifting funding paradigm, I think we should be encouraging every single non-profit to have a revenue stream, right, and where there are legal barriers to that, I think policy needs to change and evolve that's my hope really.

I'd say an aspiration for the space is that it becomes a default expectation as opposed to something that only a handful of non-profits choose to do or choose to or end up converting into a social enterprise. I think we need to find more creative, more sustainable ways of getting financing on the non-profit side. I'd say in terms of the landscape, I think it requires a real mindset expansion, a stronger use of technology, a stronger push and expectation for financial sustainability, both in terms of what they're willing to give, so veering towards longer-term grants, less onerous reporting, general operating support that isn't as narrow and directive, but also encouraging non-profits on the bottoms-up side to be diversifying their funding mechanisms, considering revenue-generating sources where legal restructuring needs to happen, actually funding that work to happen.

I see that as being the movement we're going in, right? As I mentioned when I was younger, I think the silos between profit and purpose were even bolder and stronger than they are today, and I hope that they disappear over time so that there are more multifaceted, kind of blended, so to speak, organizations really operating in these spaces.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 37:12

Being sort of a hobby philanthropist with a day job, if you want, what's your message to listeners, to humanitarian who may be fully or partly in the humanitarian sector and in this time of disruption? I think a lot of us are looking for new pathways, new ways of fighting for the causes we believe in. How do we move forward?

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 37:35

I would say for listeners, if there's anything that inspired you from this conversation, I would just encourage you to remember that ultimately, as much as we can talk about what's happening in a macro scale, on a global scale, with all these shifts to aid, all this work really is an inside job. It starts with you. It starts with each of us.

If there was one principle or concept or idea that stood out from you from this conversation, I just encourage you to think about how you can apply that in your sphere of influence and impact, right? As you heard, I'm a very tiny investor. I'm a micro microcosm of the broader system, but each of you are able to do so much within your sphere.

I'd encourage you to really think about what that is. For example, if you're really inspired by the idea of more trust-based giving, maybe reconsidering whether you've been giving to project-based opportunities and maybe reconsidering shifting that out to just support the organization more broadly, or if you think that philanthropy needs to be more experimental than maybe reaching out to a nonprofit that you've been supporting and asking them what is that project you've always been meaning to do that you could really use some funding for and that could really open up a new program or a new pathway or avenue for you as an organization.

There are so many ways, and I think I really believe truly that the actual dollar does not matter as much as the intention behind it and the opportunity to shift the paradigm. And so I would say, yeah, really think about what's in your sphere of influence and what you want to really take home and enact today.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (: 39:19

Thank you so much for that, Maya. Thank you for coming on True Monetarian and for the work you do. I very much look forward to watching Maya's shop being constructed in the coming years and to watch the great work that I'm sure you will do.

[Maya Ghosh Bichara] (: 39:32

Thank you so much, Lars. You'll be one of the early team members, I feel, except with all these great questions. It's been such a pleasure.

Thanks for your time. It's such an honor to be here and looking forward to continuing the conversation.