In this episode of Funding the Future Now, Dr. Randy Dirks talks with Christine Mangino, president of Queensborough Community College (CUNY), about earning donor trust through radical transparency. Rather than hiding hard numbers, she shows her foundation board the full budget down to the penny — because when leaders share only good news, people stop believing them. She builds trust by letting donors see the work firsthand, whether at a campus celebration or graduation, where one donor told her, "I know I am giving my money to the right place." The same authenticity drives her internal culture and her crisis leadership, which she sums up as optimism paired with a plan. Her message is simple: people trust what they can see, so show them everything — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In this episode of Funding the Future Now, Randy Dirks talks with Bob Dees, president of the National Center for Healthy Veterans, about how to fund and lead work that takes years to show results. Bob argues that sophisticated donors don't actually expect quick wins, and that the leader's job is to measure outcomes while also painting the complexity of the challenge, illustrated by a veteran who would have been counted a loss at three months and a clear win years later. Drawing on thirty-one years in the Army, Bob names the sector's most common failure as vision without operational strategy: nonprofits cast the vision but skip the phasing, role definition, and lines of authority needed to actually get there. He closes on language, arguing that organizations should look through the windshield rather than the rearview mirror, using a prophetic name, tagline, and vocabulary that names where people are headed instead of what happened to them.

Dr. John Fuchko closed a nearly 10% budget gap at Dalton State College by opening the books to his campus instead of handing down cuts from the corner office. He also posted the highest giving year in school history, more than $7 million, without a campaign to rally anyone around. His explanation traces back to a line from a mentor named Bill Goodwin: the power is in the question. We also get into what five command tours taught him about planning, what he had to unlearn when he left the military, and the three filters he uses to decide what earns his time. If your senior leaders are still asking you for permission, John has a blunt diagnosis for you.