Episode 67: Melissa Stevens

Join Lori and her guest, Melissa Stevens, as they talk about her philanthropic work in the area of medical research. Melissa is the Executive Vice President of Philanthropy at Milken Institute. She shares how she got started in philanthropy and how she developed a deeper appreciation for it after witnessing its benefits firsthand. Stay tuned!

Here are the things to expect in this episode:

• What are the new trends in philanthropy?

• How Melissa got started in philanthropy, especially in medical research

• Melissa’s philanthropic work focused on understanding bipolar disorder

• What is Melissa’s inspiration to be philanthropic?

• And much more!

About Melissa Stevens:

 As the Executive Director of the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy, I work with individual philanthropists, families, and foundations seeking to “be the change” as they leverage their time, talents, and capital to make a transformative, sustainable impact on the world.

As one of the Center’s co-founders, I’ve led the creation and execution of groundbreaking philanthropic strategies in medical, environmental, education, and public health philanthropy. In my tenure at the Milken Institute, I have overseen the development of programs and organizations, including some of the largest nonprofit funders of cancer research in the US.

Driven by a desire to champion bold ideas and uncover opportunities that lead to meaningful and measurable change, CSP has more than tripled in size under my leadership, and our work has influenced more than $1 billion in philanthropic capital. 

Connect with Melissa!

Milken Institute: https://milkeninstitute.org/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-stevens-2988482/

Connect with Lori Kranczer!

Website: https://www.linkphilanthropic.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorikranczer/

Episode Transcript

You're listening to the positive impact philanthropy podcast where we share the journeys of everyday philanthropists as they incorporate philanthropy into their lives. Philanthropy is a personal journey and through the stories we will share here. We hope that it sparks something in you and how you can make your own philanthropic impact in the world. I'm your host, Lori Kranczer attorney, philanthropic advisor and legacy giving strategists. Together we're going to explore what it looks like to be an everyday philanthropist and make a positive impact in the world in the many different ways that that takes form. But before we get started, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode posted on Wednesdays. So today I'm really excited to have Melissa Stevens. She is the executive vice president of philanthropy at Milken Institute. Welcome, Melissa.

Thank you so much, Lori. It's really a pleasure to be here with you today.

Well, you know, there's so much that you do and I'm not even sure where to start. So why don't you start off and tell us a little bit about yourself? Oh, great. Well, thank

 you. So at the Milken Institute in I lead our Center for strategic philanthropy and I really have the honor of working closely with families and foundations and helping to design and implement their giving strategies and so all the work that we do is really around with this mission of deploying philanthropic capital in a more strategic way so we can have the greatest impact possible and our vision is really, for philanthropy to be informed, inclusive, impactful. And for people in planet to thrive. So it's really been fun working across a number of different areas from science and health and environment in education and really working particularly in issue areas where we don't yet have the answers or necessarily a clear path to the finish line. But we work with philanthropy to find the best way forward and to have the greatest impact.

That's right. So there's a lot in there that I wanted to touch on a bunch of different things. So number one, what kind of trends are you seeing working with the sound because you mentioned some areas that are new to philanthropists?

Yeah, I think we are. We're seeing lots of innovation in the space. One of the trends that we're seeing is definitely an interest to work in to work in collaboration that philanthropists don't want to have to go it alone, that they are looking to other partners. They're looking to other funders that are really allow them to work across an entire system and allow them to work at scale and to fund at scale. So we're we find ourselves working at the nexus of a lot of different philanthropies and helping them to find their own strategies and to find one another and to learn from and with one another. I would say another trend that we are seeing is really an interest in sort of recyclability of capital that philanthropists want their they want their philanthropy to go further. They are interested in sort of connecting. They're getting leverage on their philanthropic capital and so working within a system to see how they can use their philanthropy to influence government funding to influence private capital in ways that we can have a multiplier effect towards solving problems. Another really interesting trend and tool that we're seeing is is using crowdsourcing and using tools like prize competitions where we can activate entrepreneurs from around the world to be thinking about problems that we've where we've traditionally gotten stuck and activating new minds, from new geographies, new backgrounds, and use their best thinking and using philanthropic capital as a tool and a really pull mechanism to unlock innovation and new solutions. So there's a lot of innovation that's happening in this space. And we're we're seeing partners and philanthropies and foundations really take new approaches, new mindsets and new tools. To have even greater impact.

So this is really interesting. So because many of the people that are listening to this podcast are not of the generation of writing out a check like their grandfather did trusting that the nonprofit or the philanthropy is doing what it said it would do. People are having more of an interest in being more innovative and collaborative. And so these trends are really interesting because this is exactly what people are looking for right now. Those that listen to this podcast. So to step back, just a moment in you to talk about philanthropic advisory, can you talk a lot about which types of clients come to you or when there's that trigger moment that someone seeks out help for their, their philanthropic advisory.

We work with philanthropists across the entire giving cycle and I'd say we work with philanthropists. Who are at the very beginning stages where they may want to step into the philanthropic space and they haven't yet because they may not even know their areas of focus or if they know their areas of focus, they don't know where to be giving and there's analysis paralysis that can set in and so we'll work with individuals very early on to define priorities, define values, to really give them a kind of a high level roadmap as to you know, where they can be giving. We also work with folks who have been giving for some time have been very generous, but maybe taking a step back and thinking, what is the impact that I'm having collectively, when I look at all that I've supported and all the ways that all the ways that I'm giving may not necessarily feel like they have a real understanding as to the progress that they are contributing to. And so will work with philanthropists that are maybe in the middle of their kind of their giving. And then we we certainly work with many who are our veteran philanthropist who have been giving for quite some time they know exactly the cause and the issues that they care about. And they just want to look on the horizon and say, What's next, you know, we're trying to solve really wicked problems that are going to take years and generations to solve. And so we always need to be thinking, you know, what's, what's ahead. What's the next problem I should be trying to solve? What's the next tool? What's the next model that I should be? That I should be deploying? So it really, it really covers the spectrum and I think anywhere you are along that journey, it's it's helpful to have to have some, some guidance some objective, kind of objective partners helping you to see what does this roadmap look like? Where's the whitespace? Where can I have the greatest impact with both my the dollars that we're giving as well as our time our treasures, and our you know, our connections? 

Yeah, so it's, it's incredible because everyone comes into philanthropy at different stages. And when they start to think about the strategy around it, I think many individuals don't understand that there is this. There's support out there for them to be able to structure their giving or for them to feel like they're getting more value out of wonder and their connection to their organizations that they're been working with for a while. So it's, yeah, like that with every stage of philanthropy there. There's a place for everybody. So Melissa, one, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, how you get involved in philanthropic advisory?

Yeah, well, philanthropy has been a through line through through all the stages of my life and I I remember early on trick or treating and carrying around my orange cardboard box collecting money for UNICEF. And then as I got older, I did a lot of volunteering through church and our local nursing homes and really just valued those experiences of giving back. And when I went to college and then to business school, I had studied biochemistry and science so I could really interested in that field, went to business school, and, and this was in the early 2000s. And there was no talk of, you know, impact. There's no talk of really, of giving back and I did feel there was a there was something missing in that experience. So I started a philanthropy club in business school, raised money for pediatric research. You know, did crazy things that college kids do like stay at for 48 hours straight to raise money and and I felt like there was I was whole again, where I could bring my interest in business. I could bring my interest in science, I could bring my interest in philanthropy together and and really found a very unique opportunities throughout my career. Career to braid those three together. So I spent time in management consulting, working with academic medical centers and research institutes that were supported by philanthropy, and then found my way to the Milken Institute, where initially I was looking at systems change within the medical research system, and saw philanthropic capital, really being a unique asset class that could have a tremendous impact on their trajectory of a field and I saw the compelling power of philanthropic capital. And that's what really brought me to wanting to do this full time is wanting to work with families and foundations and philanthropists to really understand it. This is a finite, it's a finite resource, but it can have a tremendously outsized impact if we're using it in the right way. And I wanted to help, wanted to help be able to do that for them to understand, these are the problems you're trying to solve. Here's where the white spaces here's where the need is, and so people can feel really empowered and informed as to where they're giving.

 So I hear in what you're saying, also a few different issue areas that I could see that you are aligned with. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about, you know, I know you work with lots of different philanthropists who have a plan a philanthropist very personal thing and everyone has their own issue areas that they want to support them and how they want to support it, but I'd love to hear from you about was personal to you.

Yeah, yeah. I feel so lucky to have worked across a number of different a number of different areas. Where I've worked most and where we have deep roots and I do have a personal connection to is in the area of medical research. And the institute itself has been working to really improve the efficiency of the medical research system for some time. Again, I studied biochemistry when I was working in the private sector, and I really saw that, you know, that system is just, it's not working optimally. It takes far too long. It costs way too much to develop new therapies. We shouldn't need to be investing well over a billion dollars and take nearly two decades to develop new therapies. But I saw that philanthropy, large foundations as well as these small startup disease research organizations that are started by parents sitting around a kitchen table because of child is sick, and are raising money and deploying their own money. But that philanthropic capital, while it's only 5% of all of research and development investment to the United States every year, it actually can help to influence the other 95%. And so I was really taken by just the power of philanthropy. And then that really came into focus for me even more when I had when I had my second child. My daughter was born with multiple heart defects and I really found myself turning to those same organizations and becoming involved in this same organizations and saw that it's I walked in those shoes of scared, confused, motivated parents that wanted answers. They wanted medical solutions. They wanted to see their child get better. And by giving up time and financial capital, it I saw that that could pave the way for future parents to have a better experience than we did so. So I'd say that's the issue that I feel most connected to on multiple levels.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. It is something that I think a lot of people can relate to because when something affects their life, their family, their community, it does take on a bigger role and their philanthropic interests, and I'm always interested in hearing how that affects people in there and how they give. I don't wanna put you on the spot, but I would love to hear about a project since you work in philanthropy inside medical research. Are there any stories that you can share of something that worked out really well that it was it was so well funded because of the funding that they were able to accomplish something really great?

We have a lot in process right now. We got let's see, I would say I can tell you some of the things I'm really excited about right now, which include things like just yesterday, we announced a new funder collaborative in focused on bipolar disorder that's bringing together $150 million that we are will deploy to better understand the, the underpinnings the basic science of this disease and there has not been that scale of funding nor deployed and not with a data driven research roadmap to guide that philanthropic investment ever in the field and it's been woefully underfunded and under-diagnosed and so I'm very excited about the potential of philanthropic capital there to really drive innovative research to bring new folks into the field to create research infrastructure that will allow us to better understand this disease and thus allow us to better treat, diagnose and treat this disease. So that's something I'm I'm really excited about right now.

Are they the that really is very interesting. And did the the funding was it sparked by a philanthropist or did it come from some sort of collaboration between funders and an organization? How did that come about.

Yeah, yeah. So we had a family that was interested in in this space. As you've noted before, there's often a personal connection to this space, and we worked with them over many years to really look at this entire the entire landscape, the scientific landscape. The this the state of the research system for this for bipolar, the state of the, you know, other stakeholders and partners and really mapped out a vision for how large scale philanthropic capital could be deployed. And along the way we brought together other funders, you know, to learn along with us, and it was ultimately through the learning process that we have these we have three funders, three families, the Baszucki families, Sergey Brin, and the doubt and family are, you know, are coming together to support this support this investment? So I think it really speaks to the need and the opportunity to really deeply understand an issue area and to outline where those capital needs are and where philanthropy can be best used and also to create those connections. Across funders that bring different lived experiences. Different professional experiences, their passion, capital, their time, their financial support, and bringing that all together is a very powerful package. And I'm really excited about the work that we're going to be able to do with CSP, sort of leading the way with with this new initiative, which is BD squared, breakthrough discoveries for thriving with bipolar disorder.

And this is a perfect example of when I asked people when they're interested in philanthropy, I say who joins you on your journey. And you just gave an example perfect example of have a collaboration between families supporting a particular issue alongside the organizations that will actually implement the work so I think this is a great example. Thank you for sharing that story. Absolutely. So we're getting towards the end. I want to have a couple questions still about your own inspiration to be philanthropic. It because it doesn't start in a vacuum. It starts somewhere you mentioned started in school you started the philanthropy club and business school did you do remember like anything happening in your childhood or a particular person that was that inspired you to be philanthropic or to give back in any way?

When they're certainly child, a number of philanthropists that I've had a chance to work with over the years that are that are so inspiring, but you know, to your point, I think a lot of it comes does come very close to home and I think inspiration comes to me from my parents and in more so in the you know, inspired me to, to work hard. It's really kind of dig in to your work. You know, if you love what you do never work a day in your life. So there was a discipline there that came from that. And most of all, I would say it's my kids now. And working in philanthropy. It's easy to talk about creating a better world for future generations. And then you actually create a future generation and it puts the work into a different focus. And so I'm much more mindful and intentional about building better tomorrows and thinking about the world that I want to leave for for them and everyone in future generations. So in particularly, you know, I mentioned my, my, my daughter and walking in those shoes, really brought into focus, you know, the need for health systems that were we're able to advance innovation where there is equitable access to care and the opportunity to really imagine, reimagine that.

So this is a perfect segue into our last question, which is, what do you want your legacy today?

 I want I really want my legacy to be a life that's lived with purpose and intentionality. And I want to really help others to appreciate all the gifts that they have to bring to bear which could be financial capital, intellectual capital, passion, capital. And to help them understand exactly where and how in what combinations and what type traditions they can employ them, deploy them to really do the impossible, and that's what I like my legacy to be.

Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. This has been such an eye opening interview and to see the world of you know, for our listeners to hear about philanthropic advisory and what one can do with that capital. So thanks for sharing that. Where can people find out more information about you? Yeah, they can

find us on our website, Milken institute.org. Search for a center for strategic philanthropy.

Thank you so much. So all those links will be in the show notes so everyone can have access to those as they're listening to the podcast. Again. Thank you, Melissa. It was wonderful having you as a guest. And for everyone listening, please check out the Milken Institute and see all the wonderful work that they are doing.

Thank you so much, Lori.

And then for everyone else, we'll see you next time on our next interview every Wednesday. See you soon. Thank you for joining us. I hope we provided some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. You can tune in every week on Wednesdays when new episodes are dropped. We'd love to hear your feedback. So leave comment and a rating about what you like and what you'd like to hear more about. And if you liked the episode today, make sure to share it to raise awareness about the story to inspire other women to take action. I'm Lori Kranczer And until next time, you can make a positive impact through philanthropy every day. Thanks for listening

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