All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 20 of 59 in total
Sparkle Barnes: Keeping the Door to Care Open
Sparkle Barnes is President and CEO of Health Center Partners of Southern California and its Family of Companies, where she leads a network supporting community health...
Mario Ordóñez-Calderón: The Ocean as a Place of Belonging
Mario Ordóñez-Calderón is a Maya Indigenous leader, U.S. Navy veteran, surfer, and Founding Executive Director of Un Mar de Colores, an Indigenous-led nonprofit advanc...
Alan Sorkin: The Power of Business Meets the Passion of Giving
Alan Sorkin is a nonprofit leader, mentor-coach, entrepreneur, and member of the Prebys Foundation Board. He co-founded and served as volunteer CEO of San Diego Social...
Novien Yarber: What Prebys Heard From Grantees
Dr. Novien Yarber is the Senior Learning Officer at Prebys Foundation, where he helps the foundation listen, reflect, and learn from its work with community partners. ...
Dana Toppel: Housing, Hope, and Human Service
Dana Toppel is CEO of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, one of the region’s most established human services organizations. Founded more than 100 years ago, JFS conti...
Erin Harkey: Arts, Culture, and a Healthy Democracy
Editor’s Note: This episode was recorded in April 2026, before the City of San Diego released its initial FY27 budget proposal. That proposal has since raised urgent q...
Jonathon Glus: Embracing San Diego as a Creative City
Editor’s Note: This episode was recorded in March 2026, before the City of San Diego released its initial FY27 budget proposal. That proposal has since raised urgent q...
Norma Chávez-Peterson: Courage, Community, and Defending Civil Liberties
Norma Chávez-Peterson is a longtime organizer and civil rights leader who serves as Executive Director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, one of the region’...
Jay Buys: Profit, Purpose, and the Future of Business
Jay Buys is the founder and CEO of Visceral, a B Corp-certified creative agency that builds brands and websites exclusively for social change organizations. Working wi...
Laura Castañeda: Journalism, Trust, and Telling the Full Story of a Border Region
Laura Castañeda is a veteran journalist, educator, and community voice who has spent decades helping San Diego understand itself. Known for her work in television and...
Gil Alvarado: Using All Our Resources to Benefit the Community
Gil Alvarado is the Chief Financial and Investment Officer (CFIO) of the Prebys Foundation, where he helps steward a $1.2 billion portfolio with an eye toward both str...
Walking Shield: Building Capacity and Honoring Tribal Self-Determination
Walking Shield has spent nearly four decades improving quality of life for Native communities across the United States—bridging sovereign tribal nations with philanthr...
Brandon Steppe: “Shoulder to Shoulder” Mentorship That Changes Lives
Brandon Steppe left a corporate career to start a recording studio in his garage—never imagining that a few persistent neighborhood kids would change his life. Those e...
Richard Tate: Health, Justice, and the Power of Voice
Richard Tate is the President and CEO of the California Wellness Foundation, where he leads with clarity, courage, and hope. A communications strategist turned first-t...
Scott Lewis: Journalism, Democracy, and the Future of San Diego
Scott Lewis is CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Voice of San Diego, the pioneering nonprofit newsroom he helped build nearly two decades ago. What began as an experiment in ...
Sew Loka’s Claudia Rodriguez-Biezunski: Slow Fashion, Bold Stories
Claudia Rodriguez-Biezunski is the founder of Sew Loka, a community-driven textile art studio in San Diego’s Barrio Logan. A self-taught artist and entrepreneur, Claud...
Afira Arrastia-DeVries: Kids Are Not a Problem to Solve
Afira Arrastia-DeVries is the President and CEO of the Monarch School Project, the only K–12 public institution in the U.S. solely dedicated to educating unhoused stud...
Peter Ellsworth: Trust Begins With Listening
Peter Ellsworth is a longtime San Diegan, civic leader, and founding force in modern philanthropy. From his early days in law and healthcare to his visionary role at t...
Mark Cafferty: Why Inclusive Growth Is Smart Business
Mark Cafferty is the President and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC), where he leads with a mix of realism, resolve, and heart. In t...
Molly Puryear: Dancing Toward Joy, Connection and Possibility
Molly Puryear is the Executive Director of Malashock Dance and a lifelong believer in the healing, connective power of movement. With infectious joy and deep convictio...
