Insights for Change Podcast features conversations with people in philanthropy about funder listening to shift power.
In this episode, Molly Schultz Hafid, principal consultant at MSH Consultants, talks with Eileen Farbman, co-founder and board chair of the Kolibri Foundation, about what it takes to truly share power in family philanthropy.
Eileen shares her journey from decades of direct service work with women, youth, and survivors of violence to inheriting control of a traditional family foundation and transforming it into a movement-led organization. Together with Molly, who helped guide the transition, she reflects on lessons learned about participatory grantmaking, governance changes, and the emotional realities of “letting go” of control.
They discuss how Kolibri built a board where movement leaders outnumber family members, developed collective decision-making practices, and structured grantmaking to center healing, gender and racial justice, and redistribution of wealth. Eileen also offers candid advice to other families exploring how to move money and power closer to communities.
Eileen Farbman
