Make Shift Happen
The Deeper Work of Trust-Based Philanthropy
By Mia Reilly, Deputy Director, Tara Health Foundation
Turns out, trust-based philanthropy has no endpoint.
A few months before this conversation with Shaady Salehi, then Co-Executive Director and now Senior Fellow at the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, I led the Tara Health Foundation through a comprehensive rebrand process, including the creation of a new website to share our work and stories as we spend out.
The Relational Capital Behind Rapid Response
By Diana Parker-Kafka, Abortion Movement Fund Advisor and former Executive Director of Midwest Access Coalition; Founding Board Member for Apiary for Practical Support, Elevated Access, and Foxglove Fund
Alicia Harris, Senior Program Officer for Reproductive Health Rights and Justice at Grove Foundation, and Elise Belusa, Executive Director at Tara Health Foundation, surface the accountability and mutual learning between them, which proved critical in moving each other, moving each other, other funders, and, ultimately, more resources into solidarity with movements for justice.
The Human, Relational Work of Systems Change
By Elise Belusa, Executive Director, Tara Health Foundation
Our journey toward racial justice asked each of us to set down the performance of goodness and step into real relationships.
Episode 15 of Make Shift Happen is called “The Personal Work of Systems Change,” but listening back to my conversation with Ruth, I keep thinking it should be called “The Human Work Necessary for Systems Change.”
Building New Futures from the Grassroots
By Mia Reilly, Deputy Director, Tara Health Foundation
What needs to shift to move funders from listening to doing?
In Episode 9 of Make Shift Happen, I got to talk with Hannah Yi, Program Manager at the Levi Strauss Foundation, about how her lived experience directly informs her role as a funder of social movements. Even in her own proximity to the work, though, she remains grounded in an approach to grantmaking that centers and responds to those closest to the issues on the ground.
Shifting Power to Find Connection
By Ruth Shaber, MD, Founder and President, Tara Health Foundation
How shifting power can help us find belonging and community beyond our dollars
A key moment of Episode 6 in our Make Shift Happen Conversation series centers on Tara Health’s board governance. Rachel Robasciotti, a Tara Health Foundation Board Member and founder and co-CEO of Adasina Social Capital, shares a story about our work to restructure power within our organization—and what’s possible on the other side.
Short on Funds, Long on Relationship: Spending Out to Meet the Moment
By Elise Belusa, Executive Director, Tara Health Foundation
The full experience of being a spend out means finding a role without capital.
I’m excited to share the latest in our Make Shift Happen Conversation Series. In it, Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, and I explore the ways spend out foundations stand apart in a moment and landscape marked by retreat and fear.
Meet the Leaders Making Shift Happen
By the Tara Health team
Coming October 2025, we’re looking forward to the release of our Make Shift Happen Conversation Series, where we’ve brought together leaders, innovators, and dreamers across the philanthropic and nonprofit sector who are doing the work of transforming philanthropy into a true force for gender, economic, and racial justice.
Beyond the Mirror: Testing our Internal Intentions Against External Perceptions
By Mia Reilly, Deputy Director, Tara Health Foundation
How aligned are our intentions with how others experience us? At Tara Health Foundation, we believe that building a just world requires philanthropy to transform how it operates—starting with ourselves. We partnered with the Center for Effective Philanthropy to gather candid feedback from our grantees, and the results revealed fascinating insights about trust, reporting structures, and the lasting value of human relationships in philanthropy.
In the Spaces Between: Moments of Change at Tara Health in 2024
By Elise Belusa, Executive Director, Tara Health Foundation
We believe real change happens when we create room for authentic relationships - both the challenging parts, the beautiful ones, and all the spaces in between. In this Annual Update, we’re sharing our full reflection on 2024 - an honest look at what it means to transform from the inside out.