Advertise on podcast: Distilling Philanthropy

This conversation covers what separates high-impact giving from well-intentioned giving, why fear is the single biggest deterrent to purposeful philanthropy, how the virtuous cycle of purpose-driven giving actually works, and what the coming generational wealth transfer means for anyone serious about deploying capital at scale. If you manage wealth, advise donors, or give at any level and want your giving to create the most impact it possibly can, this is the conversation to start with. Dave Swartz is the Chief Vision Officer at Anonymous Philanthropy, and in this conversation he unpacks the thinking behind a new white paper his team has spent considerable time developing. The research behind it (including findings from Oxford University) suggests that the best philanthropic organizations are not 50 percent more impactful than average. They are fifty to one hundred times more impactful.  And the worst are actively depleting resources from the space.

In this episode of Distilling Philanthropy, Rob and Josh cover the distinction between being wealthy and having money, why overcommitting to a cause tends to produce better outcomes than optimizing your giving, how liquidity events can either bond a family together or fracture one permanently, and what wealth managers consistently get wrong about entrepreneurs. Rob also shares a story from his time chairing Operation Homefront — one of the highest-stakes moments in a career full of them — and what it clarified about the difference between involvement and actual commitment. Rob Wolford co-founded Hollencrest Capital Management in 1999, building it into a nearly $3 billion UHNW advisory firm — but that's not why this conversation matters. What shapes his approach to wealth, family, and legacy is something harder to put on a pitch deck: twenty-seven years of watching what money does to people, and what it doesn't.

In this conversation, Stuart and Josh explore what it takes to move from reactive giving to root cause philanthropy, why false consensus is one of the most expensive problems in family governance and donor strategy, and how the coming generational wealth transfer (potentially $170 billion in new charitable capital over the next fifteen years) demands a more intentional approach to alignment, mission, and measurement. They also get into the fulfillment side of giving: the metric most foundations don't track, and the reason so many donors disengage from work they said mattered to them. Stuart McClure has built his career around a single discipline: finding the invisible gap between what people believe is working and what actually is. As the founder of Cylance, acquired by BlackBerry for $1.5 billion, and the author of the foundational Hacking Exposed series, Stuart spent decades applying prevention thinking to systems that everyone else assumed were protected. Now, through Wethos AI and the Clavis Foundation, he's bringing that same framework to philanthropy — asking not just where donors should give, but why so many well-resourced giving strategies quietly fail to produce what anyone actually intended.

In this episode of Distilling Philanthropy, Kevin and Ben join host Josh Stamer for a candid conversation about what it actually means to be a trusted advisor to high-net-worth families — not just picking good investments, but knowing when to push back, how to bridge generational wealth transfer with genuine philanthropic purpose, and why the most valuable thing you can offer a sophisticated client is often the clarity to see what they already have.  They also get into the formative experiences that shaped their instincts: a gap year drilling in the Western Australian Outback, cold-calling on Dun & Bradstreet cards from a cubicle in the Inland Empire, and the quiet discipline of parenting children who have more than you ever did. Kevin Murphy and Ben Durrant co-founded Provenio Capital in 2016 with a straightforward thesis: wealthy families weren't being served well by firms that treated alternatives as an afterthought and coordination as someone else's problem.  Nine years and $1.6 billion in assets under advisement later, what they've built looks less like a wealth management firm and more like a quarterback system — one designed to organize complexity, hold the right specialists accountable, and stay honest with clients even when it's uncomfortable.  

In this episode of Distilling Philanthropy, Josh Stamer sits down with Kari Hernandez (SVP of Growth at Ren, Inc.) to challenge how we measure (and practice) modern philanthropy. They dig into donor-advised funds (DAFs), why "assets parked" is the wrong scoreboard, and what it looks like to move from check-writing to problem-solving with real outcomes, momentum, and fulfillment. If you're a high net worth donor or advisor trying to deploy charitable capital with more clarity and less friction, this conversation delivers a sharper framework for what's next. Kari leads growth strategy across product, partnerships, and market expansion at Ren, a philanthropy-tech company powering charitable giving infrastructure for donor-advised funds, nonprofits, wealth managers, and fintech partners. Her background spans systems engineering and operations, including early work at Disney, leadership roles at McKinsey, and VP positions at Indigo Agriculture and Veho. She holds degrees from USC (BS Industrial & Systems Engineering), MIT (MS Transportation), and Harvard Business School (MBA).