Honest conversations about giving, legacy, and impact — captured outside the boardroom and grounded in lived experience.
BEYOND THE BOARDROOM
Distilling Philanthropy is a guest-driven, conversation-led podcast that explores philanthropy through the lived perspectives of the people who engage with it through their own work and lives. Set in a speakeasy, not a boardroom, the podcast dispels convention and leans into the moment.
Each episode features honest conversations with guests who share how they personally view philanthropy. By understanding how they define it, wrestle with it, and experience its impact, they are able to move beyond traditional narratives. The podcast looks at the real opinions, trade-offs, and moments that shape meaningful change.
Distilling Philanthropy creates space for open dialogue around responsibility, generosity, and the complexities that sit at the intersection of impact and intention.
Josh Stamer
Host, Distilling Philanthropy
Josh believes philanthropy is one of the world’s greatest opportunities to solve meaningful problems at scale. He’s built his career as a trusted advisor and steward of charitable capital, approaching each conversation as a student first—focused on building leverage by elevating others. He also believes the BEST conversations happen at the bar.
EPISODE LIBRARY
SEASON 1
Episode 01
THE METRIC PHILANTHROPY ISN’T MEASURING (BUT SHOULD)
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.
Guest
Kari Hernandez
Senior Vice President, Growth, Ren, Inc. (San Diego, CA)
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).
Episode 02
WHY WEALTHY FAMILIES NEED ADVISORS WHO PUSH BACK
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.
Guests
Kevin Murphy
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Provenio Capital (Newport Beach, CA)
Ben Durrant
Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Provenio Capital (Newport Beach, CA)
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.
Episode 03
WHAT FALSE CONSENSUS IS DOING TO YOUR GIVING STRATEGY
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.
Guest
Stuart McClure
CEO & Co-Founder of WethosAI (Irvine, CA)
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.
Episode 04
THE GAP BETWEEN “WEALTHY” AND “RICH”
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.
Guest
Rob Wolford
Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, & Director of Marketing at Hollencrest Capital Management (Newport Beach, CA)
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 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.
GUESTS
FEB 18, 2026
EP 01
KARI HERNANDEZ
MAR 03, 2026
EP 02
KEVIN MURPHY, BEN DURRANT
MAR 17, 2026
EP 03
STUART MCCLURE
APR 01, 2026
EP 04
ROB WOLFORD
COMING SOON
EP 05
GUEST TBD
COMING SOON
EP 06
GUEST TBD
INTERESTED IN BEING A GUEST?
Distilling Philanthropy features a curated group of voices working across philanthropy, advisory, and nonprofit leadership. If you’re interested in being considered for a future conversation, we’d love to hear from you.
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