About this episode

Teresa C. Younger reflects on her 13 years at the Ms. Foundation for Women, discussing leadership, inclusion, and succession planning.

In the season finale of “Gathering Ground,” host Mary Morten sits down with Teresa C. Younger, outgoing president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, for a candid reflection on 13 years of leading a legacy institution through fundamental transformation. Teresa talks about what it took to center women and girls of color at a second-wave feminist foundation, the listening tour that covered 50,000 miles in her first year, and why she believes succession planning is one of the most overlooked acts of leadership. She also shares what comes next: Project Stargazing, an intentional pause to redesign the constellations. Episode Highlights - Teresa Younger on arriving at the Ms. Foundation as its second Black woman CEO and leading a 50,000-mile listening tour that reshaped the foundation's language, priorities, and grantmaking strategy - On centering women and girls of color as a point of inclusion, not exclusion — and the board conversations, donor fears, and courageous clarity it took to make that shift explicit - Trust-based philanthropy before it had a name: how the Ms. Foundation moved to general operating support, de-siloed its grant pillars, and started treating grantees as…

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