Philanthropy does not fail for lack of money. It fails when nobody in the room has the courage to put the issue on the table. Marvin L. Smith has spent twenty years watching that happen from the inside.
In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Marvin, founder of the advisory practice and podcast Funding Bravely, for a conversation about what it costs to keep your voice inside systems that were never built for you.
Marvin grew up outside Boston, a Black and brown kid in a predominantly white, upper income town, with a hoarse voice that made read alouds something to survive. Tennis is where he found leadership before he found words. In third grade a teacher had him beating sixth graders in a math contest and feeling invincible. In eighth grade, an algebra teacher pulled him out of history class and threatened his place at the school for letting a friend copy his homework. He bombed the state test that year and did not get his confidence back for decades.
He and Ron get into philanthropy from close range. Funders who quietly bankroll advocacy but will not attach their names to it. Rooms convened to solve a problem with nobody present who has lived it. Marvin's read: the deciding factor was rarely the size of the check or the polish of the pitch deck. It was whether courage showed up.
They also talk about what comes after a role elimination, and why Marvin will not shrink to fit somebody else's job description.
Chapters:
🎾
04:05 Meet Marvin L. Smith: a hoarse voice and a tennis court
➗
05:54 Feeling invincible in math, then threatened over a shared homework
📉
08:28 The state test never made for him and the repair nobody offered
🎒
09:58 The kids were never the problem, so he asked what they wanted
🏆
18:19 Learning tennis etiquette, then deciding to play his own way
💸
26:23 What twenty years close to donors actually showed him
🔑
28:26 Courage was the variable, not the money or the pitch deck
🌊
30:56 The great wealth transfer and the advisory practice built for it
🛡️
32:58 What makes people act bravely, and why nobody wants to go first
🎯
35:40 The tennis coach question that became his advising model
💼
41:45 A role elimination, and refusing to let the market set his value
✊
45:10 I cannot shrink myself to fit someone else's job description
🔁
53:41 Reparative philanthropy and why no donor should do this alone
Links:
Connect with Marvin on LinkedIn or follow Funding Bravely to hear the conversations he is having with grant makers and fundraisers about where courage actually shows up in philanthropy, including a coming miniseries on donor advised funds. He also works directly with wealth holders and nonprofit leaders on philanthropic advising and storytelling.
Episode 108
