In this thought-provoking episode of Cause & Purpose, data scientist and impact strategist Andrew Means joins Mike Spear to expose critical gaps in how the social sector uses data and evaluation. Drawing from his vast experience in the sector, Andrew reveals how many nonprofits are "flying blind"—lacking even basic data infrastructure to make strategic decisions.

He shares practical frameworks like the "data hierarchy of needs" and emphasizes that data democratization, not expensive consultants, is the key to transformation. The discussion evolves into a broader critique of traditional philanthropy and a vision for evidence-based giving.

Andrew explains why he joined Altruous as an advisor, seeing it as uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between oversimplified ratings and inaccessible academic research. He emphasizes that with potential government funding cuts ahead, organizations that can prove their impact through data will thrive while others struggle.

Throughout, both hosts challenge the sector's resistance to general operating support, overhead myth, and top-down funding approaches. The episode concludes with Andrew's compelling case for transparency, acknowledging uncertainty in evaluations, and focusing on the only metric that truly matters: whether beneficiaries are actually better off.

In this episode of Cause & Purpose, we sit down with the CEO of Native Forward, Angelique Albert. Angelique shares insights from her life growing up on tribal lands in Montana, talks about some of the historical context that shapes the way Native Americans relate to Education, and shares insights from scaling Native Forward to serve more Native American scholars.

In this episode of Cause & Purpose, we sit down with the COO of Elemental Excelerator, Avra van der Zee.

Avra's dedication to combatting climate change has spanned her entire career. From e-bikes, to sustainable pre-fabricated construction materials, to the 150+ startups in Elemental Excelerator's portfolio, Avra has worked, across her career, to help build and scale the innovative climate solutions that will help shape our environment for generations to come.

A litigation attorney turned social entrepreneur, Avra has tons of great insights to share about everything from working with government programs, to storytelling, to climate justice issues, to storytelling, and building performance measurement and evaluation frameworks that empower organizations to maximize their impact.

Join us as we learn a bit about Avra's background, and the way she, and Elemental Excelerator, are tackling global climate change at a massive scale.