364: Purpose at Work with Scott Curran

Allyship in Action

Scott Curran, a former Clinton Foundation official and social impact lawyer, discusses his journey from global philanthropy to authoring 'Be

Key takeaways

• Scott Curran spent ten years working in global philanthropy at the Clinton Foundation.
• The 'B0PP' framework for nonprofit success stands for Board, Operations, Programs, and Partnerships.

Main topics

• Global philanthropy history
• Neuroscience of kindness

Notable quotes

Humans are wired for good.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an optimistic roadmap for leveraging human natur

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) He's a social impact lawyer, advisor, educator who helps leaders and institutions turn good intentions into lasting impact, founder and CEO of Beyond Advisors, and he has previously served as general counsel on the Clinton Foundation as well. He has a podcast, Better Good, and a book, Better Good. Thank you Speaker 2 (0:22) so much for having me, Julie. It's great to be with you. Speaker 1 (0:24) Okay. So your story, I mean, there's a long backstory with all sorts of political figures and things, but the real story behind Better Good and why you decided to write this amazing book to help folks start, build, scale nonprofits. What else started in the couch and like many conversations with your significant other, tell us how you got this idea started. Speaker 2 (0:47) Yeah, you're exactly right. I was leaving. I knew I would be leaving the Clinton Foundation. It was circa 2015 going into 2016. So when you work in the Clinton Foundation, which is just a nonprofit. And one, we always knew whose names were on the door. And 2015 wasn't or 2016 wasn't the first presidential election we worked through then. There was one in 2008 as well. But I knew that that one was a bit more consequential. And whether Secretary Clinton won or lost the election, I knew that the foundation would become probably a smaller version of what it was. So at the time, there was conventional wisdom that she might be successful in that pursuit. And so I was deciding what I would do next. I knew that the foundation was a big platform and I had been so fortunate to. I worked there for 10 years working in global philanthropy in a huge nonprofit with 4,000 people in 40 countries, working on over a dozen different initiatives that ran the gamut from global health to climate to early childhood education, you name it, you know, disaster relief. It was such a fun place to work and learn. I said, well, if I'm going to leave this, what Speaker 1 (1:50) do I do next? Because Speaker 2 (1:52) it's a big platform and it's a lot of knowledge. One night I'm sitting on the couch and, you know, this was not the first time we had the conversation, but I closed my laptop and just waited for my wife to take that as a signal. And so what should I do next? And she kind of flipped the script on me. I think like a lot of people like you and your listeners, we all do like informational interviews with people. And whenever I do one with someone, I always say, OK, I don't want you to think too much about this answer, but tell me what would you do tomorrow if time and money were no limitation? Go, because then you find out what really motivates people if they give an answer really quickly. And it can run the gamut. You know, I used to say I want to be a Jungle Cruise captain on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney World because I love corny jokes. And, you know, other people say they want to do something else. But it's it's usually about bringing joy or light or doing something to make the world a better place. And my answer. So my wife flipped that question on me and said, well, OK, Scott, what would you do tomorrow if time and money were no limitation? Speaker 1 (2:47) Go. And I said, I want to give it all away. Speaker 2 (2:51) For 10 years, I've gotten to sit in this like all-star game of global philanthropy during this amazing time of 2005 to 2015, when all kinds of fascinating things happened in global philanthropy and what we now call wider cross-sector social impact. Whether that's people like the Gates family pivoting from software to global philanthropy or, you know, back in the day, Lance Armstrong went from being a bike rider to a cancer survivor and warrior. All those things happened in the early 2000s and we got to see the way it worked. And as an attorney, I got to watch the way global philanthropy built and pivoted. Cross-sector partnerships came about. Social enterprise became a thing. We didn't even know it was called a thing. ESG. Yeah, you name it, right? CSR pivoted into corporate impact, pivoted into ESG, all the things. And so I was like, we got lucky to sit in an all-star game of this. And we had this amazing toolkit of advice, guidance, and tools that people could use. And I really just wanted to give it away. And that was how the book started. Actually, that's how my consulting firm started, which is a separate story because I really had a very negative view of consulting based on my experience. Speaker 2 (4:00) not all consultants are bad or, and I don't mean to be throwing shade, but a lot of it didn't work out the way it wanted to. So I thought I'll never be a consultant. So I started a consulting firm as my first effort to sort of give away this advice, guidance, and tools to others who otherwise wouldn't have access to it. And then that event, the issue of scale hit me, which is, well, how do you do this at scale? It works great for me as a business, as a small boutique consulting firm with some amazing clients and some wonderful work, but how do I give away the repeated successes and lessons learned? And so. that became this book. That Speaker 1 (4:31) did. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. And I love how you start the book with just a genuine science backed, like call for humanity to say we're wired. Humans are wired for good. And you walk through, you know, the basic components of the brain and the brain's chemistry. Tell us more about that. Especially in this wacky world, which you clearly address, like we are in some weird, strange times right now. Why should we believe that humans will do the right thing? I Speaker 2 (5:01) love the question. I think it's so important for us as humanity to sit in the moment and realize we're dealing with this thing we call the moment, this persnickety, persistent moment of, holy heck, I just took a deep breath there because I think about the headlines just today. I mean, you know, you have climate catastrophes. We have geopolitical strife. We have actual wars. We have fires, floods and famines. I mean, these are not light times. Speaker 2 (5:27) I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish about anything. I don't want to be toxic positivity guy, but I do want to live in the reality that there's something we can do about it. And the reason I start the book with the fundamentals is that chapter two is humans are wired. Chapter one is you're doing more good than you think you are. There's power in recognizing that because momentum begets momentum. Chapter two is what you're talking about, the brain chemistry, that humans are wired for good. We always have been. We never would have made it out of the caves or this long on planet Earth if we weren't. And I don't go deep into this. I'm not a science guy, but I do just talk about, you know what? There's four chemicals that are always at work and we know them and we feel them and we recognize the ways they show up. And it's dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. And we all feel that good push whenever think about. The last time you did something good, held a door open, pick something up for someone who dropped it, helped