Stop & Talk

Welcome to Stop and Talk, a podcast about connection and building a more vibrant region together through creativity, health, and community. This is your host, Grant Olofond, the CEO of the Conrad Prebys Foundation. The Conrad Prebys Foundation is the largest private foundation in San Diego County. For now, one of the interesting things happening in this town is a new wave of philanthropy that we're delighted to be a part of. This foundation works to create an inclusive, equitable, and dynamic future for all San Diegans.

Prebys invests in 4 program areas: visual and performing arts, medical research, health care, and youth success, all with an eye towards supporting a concept of community well-being that we believe lies at the core of San Diego's future. You may have met our late founder, Conrad Prebys. But to help you understand, we are one product of Conrad's awesome contributions to San Diego. If you're familiar with San Diego, you may see his name on buildings, the plaza, the Rady Jacobs Shell, for example, at research institutes, in zoo exhibits, and at the zoo, but he also left a significant gift in his foundation to help care for the future of San Diego. It's a remarkable gift, actually, that will continue to benefit San Diego for generations to come, and we hope not just San Diego, but the rest of the country.

The foundation has been around for 2 going on 3 years. So as a foundation, we are stopping and we ask ourselves, what are we learning from the work we do in community? What's really effective when we talk about helping communities move forward? And how do we leverage our role in the community to support artists and researchers and those who are building connection and inclusion in the region, those who are lacking resources and looking to gain access to it, and those who have resources and are looking to gain access to new audiences and new ideas and new ways of doing things, the core of innovation. And that's where this podcast comes into the picture.

As the former CEO of a large foundation in the East Coast, I've learned that the initiatives of foundation supports can elevate new ideas, build connections, and help a great idea go from concept to fruition to implementation on a very large scale. What happens in one community can inform what happens in many communities. And my goal with this podcast is to share what we are learning as the Conrad Prebys Foundation as we strive to build relationships, cocreate grants, and invest in new and different initiatives. I hope we spotlight folks you may not know and many folks you do. We seek to elevate the work that people are taking on to build richer communities and a better society for everyone.

We look forward to hearing a variety of insights and sharing our love for the Greater San Diego region because this is an amazing place. As a newer San Diego, and I must say I have and I hope to learn about these folks, their relationships with their community, and explore our shared future through this podcast. It's a future that extends across this great county, but also across this great country, and we are privileged to be contributing to the conversation. Thanks for listening. Please be sure to subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast.