Capital for Good

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with two extraordinary media leaders — Christy Tanner '99, the president and CEO of New York Public Radio, an iconic and 100-year-old center for local and global media, and Carroll Bogert, the CEO of The City Reporter, the independent newsroom founded in 2019 to cover breaking news, investigative, and service journalism in New York City. In this wide-ranging conversation, we hear from these industry veterans about their early callings as reporters, their respective careers as pioneers — one using journalism to hold power to account, one forging new business models in the face of technological transformation — and their thoughts about the challenges, and opportunities, of the current moment in New York and around the world. We start with Tanner and Bogert's gravitational pulls to journalism and the formative experiences as reporters that would shape their careers in media. Tanner explains how as a young girl, inspired by the likes of Nancy Drew and Nellie Bly, the ability to "ask questions, investigate things, find out what's going on," and the creative process of writing "captured my imagination." Her first jobs at the AP and in local newsrooms in South Carolina and Tennessee taught her how investigative reporting could have tangible impact, prompting changes in government policies. For Bogert, a member of the generation of idealists who grew up on "Woodward and Bernstein and All the President's Men," journalism was "something noble… and world changing:" a way to "uncover abuse at the top and change history." As a foreign correspondent for Newsweek, she would chronicle the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the fall of the Soviet Union. As the industry evolved, so too did their respective paths. Bogert would go on to leadership roles at Human Rights Watch and as the founding president of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering criminal justice in the United States. "The though line," she says, is that "challenging the abuse of power is the essential role of journalism. Power requires constant vigilance because it will trend towards abuse if it's not watched." Tanner, whose experiences included hosting a kind of proto-podcast in the mid-1990s, saw early on that "the internet was going to change media forever." Back in New York, she had a "front row seat to the invention of streaming as we know it" — newspapers, magazines, television, audio — and would become a leader in the digital transformation of legacy media companies like The Washington Post, Reed Elsevier, TV Guide, and CBS. While both new in their current seats, Tanner and Bogert bring their expertise as seasoned industry leaders — and New Yorkers – to the roles. Tanner notes that while NYPR has grown into a multiplatform organization with radio (WNYC, WQXR), digital news, and podcasts with significant national and global reach, its local resonance with New Yorkers is remarkably strong. Bogert explains that at "this historical moment," when investigative newsrooms are disappearing, "local media is where it's at." She believes that the independence of nonprofit media organizations gives them "a particularly special role" to hold political leaders accountable and to rebuild trust in media. While acknowledging any number of challenges — in the industry, in a fraught political environment — Tanner and Bogert are optimistic: about the opportunities for organizations like theirs to collaborate, to "share best practices," to develop more sustainable business models, and to cultivate greater understanding of the need of philanthropy to support media as a critical pillar of our civic infrastructure. Mentioned in this episode: New York Public Radio The City Reporter

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City and the first woman to lead that congregation in its 185-year history. Born in Korea to a Jewish American father and a Korean Buddhist mother, Buchdahl is the first Asian American to be ordained as a cantor or rabbi in North America. She is also well known for her innovations in leading worship, reaching millions across 100 countries via livestream and cable broadcast. Her New York Times best-selling memoir, Heart of a Stranger, roots her unlikely story and experience as an outsider and boundary crosser in both ancient Jewish traditions and in the universal longing for belonging. Heart of a Stranger, Buchdahl explains, is both a particular and shared narrative. She tells us that, as a child, she often felt she was an outsider: Korean in America, American when she returned to Korea, and an unusual mixed-race family in the Jewish community. She connects this experience to her family's — starting with her mother who was born in Japan, where her family had been displaced, before returning to Korea and eventually immigrating to the United States — and to ancient Jewish narratives, from the biblical story of Abraham, a stranger in a foreign land, to millennia as diaspora outsiders around the world. Buchdahl also speaks of crossing boundaries to find home. "Home is where your people are," her mother told her, and then demonstrated how welcoming others (as an ESL teacher in Tacoma, Washington and a founder of an organization to assist new immigrants to the US — in Buchdahl's words, a "serial welcomer") could be transformative for everyone, creating community in the place of strangeness. This too, Buchdahl reminds us — the act of welcoming, with compassion and empathy — has roots in Abrahamic and other spiritual traditions and can be a powerful antidote to the isolation and polarization dividing us today. Agency and intentionality are central themes of the book, and of our conversation. We discuss what this means in the Jewish context — Buchdahl's decision and acts to define her own identity and path –— and its more universal applications: the spiritual imperative we all have to be boundary crossers. For Buchdahl, much of her early calling and connection to faith came through music, what she calls "my natural spiritual language." We explore how music has shaped her identity, her roles as cantor and rabbi, and the way she leads the congregation at Central Synagogue. Music is about beauty, she notes, but even more so about the "energy and electricity that comes when we're making it together." Buchdahl believes that much of her responsibility is to feel and modulate that energy. We end with a broader discussion of leadership and what it means to have the "appropriate" amount of humility (in Hebrew, "anavah") to lead. Sometimes, Buchdahl says, even if it is uncomfortable, "you have to step in to fill that space," and all the more so in moments of destabilization. "You have to speak to people's fear, to then move forward and beyond." While there is no shortage of challenges — Buchdahl cites anti-Semitism, climate and technological change, isolation and polarization, to name a few — she also believes "there are ways to mine each crisis for the opportunity it provides us." We conclude with a return to agency — and exhortation. "Every day," Buchdahl says, "we can take one step towards building the world we want to live in." Mentioned in this episode: Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity and Belonging, (Angela Buchdahl, 2025)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Greg Shell, a seasoned investor, civic leader, and partner at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, where he leads the firm's inclusive growth strategy. Over the course of the conversation, we discuss how Shell's three decades and expertise in investing, and his commitments to creating opportunity and greater economic and social mobility, for many years pursued through board leadership and community and nonprofit engagement, have come together in impact investing, first at Bain Capital, and now at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. Shell explains that he believes deeply in the power of capitalism — the power of the profit model to drive innovation, opportunities for ownership and wealth building, economic growth — and that the current system is failing to deliver broad based economic and social mobility. He notes that stagnant wages, growing income and wealth inequality, and deep and real economic insecurity, are all profound challenges, but ones that must and can be addressed. "Our economy would be bigger and faster growing if more people could participate and contribute fully," Shell says. This is also the thesis of the private equity strategy he leads at Goldman Sachs Alternatives that invests into affordable and high-quality health care, education and workforce development, and financial inclusion. In each vertical, Shell's team identifies companies that focus on remedying exclusion as social and economic challenge and market opportunity, where need drives demand, innovation expands access, and both lead to social impact and strong business fundamentals. We walk through two portfolio examples in education (online literacy intervention) and health care (autism services). Despite the turbulence of the current environment, Shell is optimistic. "Human capital is the first, best and greatest asset we have," he says. "Investing in human capital is always the right decision, and if we do it the right way" can deliver extraordinary returns, on every dimension. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu. Mentioned in this Episode Goldman Sachs Inclusive Growth

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with veteran investor and climate activist Tom Steyer. Over twenty-five years, Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a $36 billion multi-strategy global investment firm. In 2012 he stepped away from Farallon to dedicate his time, resources, and energy to mobilizing climate action: clean air and energy initiatives in California; climate focused ballot initiatives in numerous states; youth voter engagement and mobilization (NextGen America); and a 2020 Presidential run largely focused on the climate crisis. Today, Steyer is the co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a climate-focused investment firm, and the author of Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War. We begin the interview by discussing Steyer's parents, both civically engaged members of the Greatest Generation. In his father's case, a lawyer who served in the Navy and then as a prosecutor at Nuremberg. Steyer describes World War II as a crucible moment for Americans — galvanizing collective action and a sense of being part of something larger than oneself. For Steyer, the climate fight is a similar calling. We discuss why, despite current political headwinds, the momentum behind the climate revolution — the transition to net zero via the development and adoption of low carbon technologies — is very much alive, well, and accelerating. In Steyer's view, this is because of the dramatic decline in costs of renewables — solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of energy — and because applied technologies like batteries and electric vehicles continue to improve in quality and cost, driving demand. "This is not eat your gruel," he says. "It's cheaper, faster, better. When you put eight billion people on a problem, they solve it." We also explore promising new technologies coming on-line, from geothermal energy and AI optimization of the electric grid to geosynthetic seawalls. While these new technologies will enable the transition, Steyer notes that "climate capitalism" also requires new rules and policies to speed innovation and deployment; ultimately this means paying for carbon pollution. He argues that despite objections to the idea of a "tax," people are already paying — in the form of destruction to homes, businesses, livelihoods, health — though often it is the most vulnerable, those who have contributed the least to the problem, in the United States and around the world, who bear the cost. We conclude with a call to action. Historically, Steyer reminds us, "we've chosen to do the right things, even when they're hard, and that has always paid off for us, and it will always pay off for us. That is who we are, and that is where this world is going. This revolution is happening. Our job, as Americans, is to be at the forefront." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu. Mentioned in this podcast: Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War, (Spiegel and Grau, 2024)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Janno Lieber, the chairman and CEO of New York's MTA, one of the world's oldest, largest, and most complex public transit systems. "New York is my passion," Lieber says, and the throughline of his career. Lieber, a lifelong New Yorker, business leader and transit veteran — he was a transportation advisor to Mayor Koch, an Assistant Secretary of Transportation in the Clinton Administration, and led the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site after September 11 attacks — talks about the complexity of overseeing a public transportation system that spans a 12-county, 25-million person region: 6,400 subway cars, 472 stations, 5,700 buses, and two major commuter rails. Lieber notes that the success of the region — it is the economic powerhouse of the local state and much of the national economy — rests on density and mobility. "The ability to get around New York only works if you have great mass transit," he says; the MTA moves more than six million people per day. For users, trains, buses and subways are 15 percent the cost of owning an automobile. "The magic of transit," Lieber explains, "is it is one of the very few things that makes living in New York City and the region affordable." We discuss congestion pricing, the decades in making the policy to charge automobiles $9 a day to enter the most congested part of the city to reduce traffic, improve emissions, air quality, health and safety, and help finance maintenance and upgrades to the 100 year old transit system. The program launched January 5 and early data is very promising: a 10 to 20 percent reduction in traffic; significantly reduced travel times for drivers from New Jersey, Long Island, Queens and the Bronx, and along some of the city's most crowded thoroughfares (i.e., Canal Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th); increased transit ridership; and revenue generated for critical improvements: elevators and ramps to make all subway stations accessible and ADA compliant, new train cars and electric buses, new tracks, signals and power systems, mitigation efforts in areas that may see spillover traffic. Lieber notes that the economic benefits are already observable in the zone itself: increased pedestrian traffic, an uptick in retail, restaurant and Broadway sales, and promising indices in commercial leasing — "a vote of confidence" in the program. For all these reasons the business community has long supported the policy. The MTA is equally pleased to see high rates of customer satisfaction coming from drivers with reduced commute times, which Lieber believes will also be important to counter the recent political opposition from Washington. Lieber reminds us that congestion pricing has been successfully tested in the courts, and there is nothing in the federal law or program design that would allow for its rollback. We also speak about how central public safety, real and perceived, is to the economic and civic health of the city. "Public transit is where six million New Yorkers every day form their opinion about whether government works, and to some extent whether this community, this experiment in diversity and tolerance and economic dynamism, is working," Lieber says. While the data show that overall crime in the city is down, crime in the subway is down, and subway crime accounts for less than two percent of overall crime, high profile and frightening crimes, and the city's larger mental health, substance use and homeless crises that are acutely manifest in the subway system, play an outsized play role in the public's sense of security, order and well-being. "Not only to the subways have to be safe, they have to feel safe," Lieber insists, and we discuss numerous efforts the MTA is taking in coordination with other city agencies to address these issues. We conclude with the resilience of New Yorkers in the face of adversity — the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the September 11 attacks, the dotcom burst, and the financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy, the pandemic — and how the city "bounces back even better" to become a better version of itself. "Never bet against New York," is Lieber's motto. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu. Mentioned in this Episode Congestion Pricing Reduced Traffic. Now its Hitting Revenue Goals, (The New York Times, 2025)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with three inspiring leaders in women's health, Erika Seth Davies, Jade Kearney, and Flory Wilson, each pioneering advances in reproductive and maternal health, and each using business, investment, engagement, and advocacy as levers for social change. Davies is the CEO of Rhia Ventures, a nonprofit that advances reproductive and maternal health equity by leveraging capital to focus on the needs, experiences, and perspectives of historically marginalized people in decision making. Rhia ventures activities include venture capital investing (via RH Capital), ecosystem building, corporate engagement and advocacy, and narrative change. Wilson is the founder and CEO of Reproductive & Maternal Health Compass (RMH) Compass, a nonprofit focused on the role employers play in access to reproductive and maternal health, and on providing companies with the tools, resources, support, and recognition necessary to offer best in class RMH benefits for all workers. Kearney is the co-founder and CEO of She Matters, a digital health platform designed to improve maternal morbidity through cultural competency and technology. Focused in particular on improving health outcomes for Black women, and on the epidemic of Black maternal morbidity, She Matters is a B2B company that offers health providers a culturally competent certification program tailored to the specific nuances and challenges facing Black women in the US health care system. Over the course of this conversation, we touch on the personal and professional experiences that have informed each of these leaders' work in health equity and access. We also explore how current headwinds and retrenchment — on reproductive and maternal health, on racial equity and inclusion, and on corporate activism — motivate them and have shaped their innovative business models. "If anyone says entrepreneurship is easy," Kearney says, "point them in my direction. Social entrepreneurship is sometimes gut wrenching because you're so close to the problem. But change is also soul feeding because you're so close to the problem." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu. Mentioned in this Episode Rhia Ventures Reproductive and Maternal Health Compass She Matters

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Shaun Donovan, one of the country's most important leaders — and lifelong advocates — for housing, economic development, and shared prosperity. Donovan has worked at the highest levels of government — as Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama and as Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in New York City — overseeing large scale public-private partnerships. Today he approaches that work from Enterprise, where he leads the nation's only nonprofit that brings together in one place housing solutions, capital, and community development. We begin with some of Donovan's formative personal and professional experiences that motivated his lifelong commitment to housing. Growing up in New York City during a time of crises, with high levels of street homelessness and neighborhoods across the city severely challenged, Donovan was drawn to work at community-based organizations focused on homelessness, rebuilding communities, and financing community revitalization. We discuss how these experiences would inform his years in government, and his understanding of the role of the public sector. "I am a deep believer in the power of government and the need for a strong government role in the service of the public good," Donovan says. He notes that, in particular, government can make foundational investments in things like infrastructure or basic scientific research that lay the groundwork for much broader economic prosperity, and can set the "rules of the road," for commercial market players. He also underscores the importance of cross sector partnerships: Government can scale innovations tested by the nonprofit and private sectors or shape policy that responds to community-based movement building. Donovan's forty-year commitment to housing is rooted in the sector's "unique" role in people's lives — where people live and their quality of housing — affects larger opportunities and well-being: schooling, health, safety, and employment. Housing has also become the most expensive thing in most people's lives: more than half of US renters spend over 30 percent of income on rent, closer to 50 percent for lower income Americans. We discuss how today's affordability crisis has led to record levels of street homelessness, overcrowding, evictions, and instability in communities across the United States — the worst Donovan has seen in his lifetime. The high cost of housing also prevents individuals and families from moving to higher paying jobs; limited economic mobility in turn exacerbates economic and political segregation and polarization. Despite these challenges, Donovan is encouraged by important developments at the national, state, and local level. We discuss what he calls the "New New Deal:" the trillions of dollars the federal government has deployed to infrastructure and climate (via the Inflation Reduction Act), political momentum at the state level to increase the supply of affordable housing, and a wellspring of housing innovation in communities across the US. At Enterprise, Donovan and colleagues take on all of these issues, with a particular focus on racial equity and building resilience and upward mobility. Founded forty years ago, Enterprise today invests approximately $10 billion a year into communities ($64 billion cumulatively to build or preserve 950,000 homes), owns and manages 13,000 affordable homes, and is the country's largest housing policy and advocacy organization. All of these activities involve partnerships. For example, Enterprise has recently joined forces with LISC, Habitat for Humanity, the United Way, and Rewiring America to apply for $9.5 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to work with 156 communities across the country to decarbonize affordable housing, invest in resilience, and ensure an equitable low carbon transition. Enterprise also oversees a variety of innovation challenges to support effective housing solutions developed by community-based organizations across the United States. "We have solutions, we know what works," Donovan says. "I think this is the moment, potentially, when we come together… to build a national movement to make housing a critical part of how we support families in this country." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu. Mentioned in this Episode Enterprise The Inflation Reduction Act Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Power Forward

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, and one of the country's most prominent experts and voices on free speech, free expression, and human rights. Nossel has held leadership roles in government, the nonprofit and private sectors, and is the author of the award-winning book Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. We begin with some of Nossel's formative personal and professional experiences that shaped her passion for human rights, including participating as a young person in the movement to free Soviet Jews in the 1980s, and her years after college in South Africa during the country's early transition from Apartheid to democracy. Both influenced what would become a throughline throughout her career — "an impulse to advocate for people who take great risks, who assert themselves, who challenge authority," whether that was leading important initiatives at the State Department under President Obama, at the UN under President Clinton, or at civil society organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and now PEN America. Nossel walks us through a kind of "free speech and free expression" 101. She explains that while much of the important conversation about free speech centers on the First Amendment, and therefore on protections against government infringement on speech, more broadly free speech is also the foundational right for all other rights in a free and democratic society, the "catalyst for a range of social goods." Nossel reminds us that the open exchange of ideas allows for deliberation, persuasion, debate, accountability, the ability to make better policies, choose better leaders, and advance scientific progress artistic creativity; freedom of expression is "an underwriter of so many other movements, the ability to advocate for… women's rights, climate justice, racial justice." She worries about a rising generation becoming alienated from the principle of free speech, seeing free speech at odds with commitments to diversity, inclusion, and pluralism — when in fact they are mutually supportive and reinforcing. We discuss many of the ways Nossel and her PEN America colleagues aim to serve as "guarantors of free speech and open discourse" through work to "celebrate and defend freedom of expression worldwide." Some of this takes the form of enabling and amplifying lesser heard voices like Dreamers or incarcerated writers; some through awards, festivals, and public programming celebrating a "big tent" of writers and voices that in turn supports PEN's free expression and advocacy work, including the defense of persecuted writers around the world, litigation, i.e., the recent federal lawsuit in Escambia County, Florida challenging book bans, or warnings on the dangers of education gag orders. For years, PEN America has also worked on issues of campus free speech, a topic we explore in light of the recent protests and crises of university leadership. Nossel hopes that today's campus convulsions have brought about a recognition that universities need to put in place deliberate, intentional training and inculcation of a culture of free speech, open discourse, and academic freedom to support the diversity of experience, opinion, and perspective that makes universities "catalysts for understanding and growth." We also touch on the large and "messy" issues of online speech, the ways it can be weaponized, the challenges of disinformation, of businesses built on algorithms that prioritize inflammatory content — that are not governed as public entities or liable for most posted speech, and of the lag in appropriate regulation. "The best we can do is experiment," Nossel says. To date, that experimentation has included important new EU regulations, and efforts from the tech companies themselves to improve content moderation. Nossel herself sits on the Meta oversight board, a group that works to apply human rights principles to adjudicate complex content moderation quandaries and dilemmas. While deeply concerned about speech issues — particularly the problems of misinformation in an election year (in the United States and around the world), Nossel is also hopeful there is increased recognition, on the political left and right "that each has a stake in speech." "Speech really should be an issue that sits above politics, and for a long time it was," she says. "My hope is that we can go back to that when it comes to the nature of our discourse." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu. Mentioned in this Episode "In Win for Free Expression, Jude Rule Lawsuit Challenging Escambia County, FL Book Banks can Move Forward," (PEN America, 2024) "A Free-Speech Fix for our Divided Campuses,"(Suzanne Nossel, Wall Street Journal, 2023) Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, (Suzanne Nossel, Dey Street Books, 2020) PEN America