721. Four Leaders on Mergers, Burnout, and Radical Honesty with Funders - Tammy Tibbetts, Lindsey Fuller, and Becky Straw
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About This Episode
What does it look like to lead without the traditional nonprofit playbook? Recorded live at the We Are For Good Summit and moderated by Stacy Huston, CEO of SixDegrees.org, this panel brings together three leaders who each named a default they refuse to accept — and shared what they're doing instead.
Tammy Tibbetts of She's the First makes the case that mergers can be a strategic first choice, not a last resort, drawing on her organization's near-final merger with Girl Rising. Lindsey Fuller of The Teaching Well rejects burnout as the price of mission work and explains how radical honesty helped her org retain 100% of its funders for three consecutive years. Becky Straw of The Adventure Project flips the traditional aid model on its head, building local jobs instead of dependency.
For any nonprofit leader feeling the limits of "the way it's always been done," this conversation is a permission slip — and a practical starting point.
In this episode, you'll hear:
Why a merger can be a strategic first move instead of a white flag — and the single question Tammy asked herself to know She's the First was making the right call
How The Teaching Well retained 100% of its funders three years running by being radically honest about what its team actually needs
The case for treating identity as an asset, not a liability — even while peer orgs were scrubbing their websites in 2025
Episode Highlights:
Three nonprofit myths busted (1:46)
Mergers as a strategic first choice (5:28)
One tactical first step toward exploring a merger (8:35)
The dignity of work: flipping the aid model (10:23)
Doubling down on storytelling after the USAID gap (12:40)
Identity as asset: leading with Sankofa (14:20)
Retaining 100% of funders through radical honesty (16:26)
Comfort as complacency (18:09)
The "one good thing": self-care and collective care (24:21)
Meet the Panel
Stacy Huston — Host | CEO, SixDegrees.org
A social impact strategist working at the intersection of storytelling, influence, and action, Stacy leads Six Degrees, "a nonprofit for nonprofits" that brings organizations together as a collective force instead of pitting them against each other in a scarcity mindset.
Tammy Tibbetts — Co-Founder, She's the First
Tammy co-founded She's the First 17 years ago to put girls front and center — every girl educated, respected, and heard — working directly with girls and their mentors across East Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. She's now leading the organization's near-final merger with Girl Rising, uniting under one brand to build a stronger continuum of support for girls.
Lindsey Fuller — Executive Director, The Teaching Well
Lindsey leads The Teaching Well, a retention-focused organization working nationwide to solve the largest school staffing crisis on record by keeping teachers, principals, and district leaders — especially educators of color — in their gifts and in schools. She leads with an identity-forward lens and an unapologetic belief that the social sector can be healthy, wealthy, and impactful.
Becky Straw — Co-Founder, The Adventure Project
A veteran of Charity Water, Becky co-founded The Adventure Project to support local ventures in Sub-Saharan Africa by creating good jobs — like training local mechanics to fix the third of African wells that sit broken, rather than drilling new ones. Her work centers dignity, agency, and the belief that people are the heroes of their own communities.
Powerful Quotes
"Comfort can be a sign of complacency — sometimes it's the signal that maybe we're not doing enough." — Stacy
"I had to take a couple weeks off and trust that everything would not burn and fall apart around me. When I modeled it, it made it a lot easier for my team to ask for what they need." — Stacy
"We believe that mergers can and should be a strategic first choice. There is a myth out there that they're a last resort." — Tammy
"If millions of dollars dropped from the sky, would I still want to do this merger? And the answer was so clearly yes." — Tammy
"Burnout is the default — and I reject that. We think we can be healthy, wealthy, and impactful right here in the social sector space." — Lindsey
"I see identity as asset. I see identity as liberation." — Lindsey
"You're not a hero. You are a do-gooder with a larger wallet. People in philanthropy want to be humanized, not worshiped.” — Lindsey
"A third of all wells in Africa are broken. So instead of drilling more, let's employ people locally to keep them working." — Becky
"People deserve the dignity of work. Sometimes they know exactly what to do — they're just lacking capital." — Becky
Resources Mentioned
SixDegrees.org— Stacy Huston's organization, described as "a nonprofit for nonprofits," bringing organizations together as a collective force
She’s the First — Tammy Tibbetts's organization putting girls front and center worldwide
Girl Rising — She's the First's merger partner; the unified brand going forward, led by CEO Christina Lowery
The Teaching Well — Lindsey Fuller's retention-focused organization solving the school staffing crisis
The Adventure Project — Becky Straw's organization creating good jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa
La Piana Consulting — the firm that "wrote the textbook" on nonprofit mergers; cited for the finding that 92% of surveyed merged organizations called it a success a year later
Gallup global poll — cited for the finding that people's greatest dream worldwide is a good job
Sankofa — the Ghanaian principle of looking back to move forward, central to Lindsey's identity-forward leadership
We Are For Good Summit— the event where this panel was recorded
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