Giving Done Right started during the pandemic and was recorded in a dining room and a closet. Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), explains how the show reached its sixth season with help from the Chronicle of Philanthropy and a network of donor advisors. He covers what hosting takes in time and staff, why CEP hired an outside producer, and the two things he would tell any nonprofit starting a podcast.

Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, says a nonprofit starting a podcast should do two things first. It should find an experienced producer and line up distribution partners who will put the show in front of its audience. His own show, Giving Done Right, is in its sixth season at 10 or 11 episodes a year, and it reaches donors through the Chronicle of Philanthropy, wealth advisors, donor-advised fund providers, and community foundations. Buchanan joined CEP as its first employee in 2001. He started the podcast during the pandemic to carry the ideas in his 2019 book of the same name to a wider audience. He tells JT and Richard how the audience grew to include foundation staff, how a season is made within a five-week recording window, and what an outside evaluation could and couldn’t show about the podcast’s impact.

Key points

• Buchanan said the Chronicle of Philanthropy posts each Giving Done Right episode on its website the day after it reaches podcast apps and promotes it in its email. The Chronicle has no role in producing the show.
• After CEP saw how many foundation staff were listening, it changed how it describes the show. Buchanan said it is now for “anyone who gets to give money away,” whether an individual donor, a program officer, or a foundation president.
• CEP records almost all of a season’s episodes in about five weeks. Buchanan said this means a longer wait between recording and release but frees him for the rest of his job, and timely episodes get turned around quickly while less time-sensitive ones are released later.
• Buchanan doesn’t send guests interview questions in advance because he worries they’ll script their answers. He sends a few bullet points on topics instead.
• A third-party evaluation by Impact Architects found some evidence that the show’s stories influence how listeners give. Buchanan noted the limitation: only listeners willing to be interviewed or surveyed are counted, and a show can’t identify everyone who listens.

About Phil Buchanan
Phil Buchanan is president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which he joined as its first employee in 2001. CEP now has 60 staff in Cambridge and San Francisco and does research and advisory work for funders, including its Grantee Perception Report. Buchanan wrote Giving Done Right (2019) and hosts the podcast of the same name.

Mentioned in this episode

• Center for Effective Philanthropy
• Giving Done Right podcast and book
• Giving Done Right, Season 6, Episode 2, with KaBOOM! CEO Lysa Ratliff
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy
• Impact Architects, the firm that evaluated Phil’s podcast

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