I'm Jonathan Cape Heart. Welcome to Cape Up.

Darren Walker is currently the president of the Ford Foundation, but his philanthropic career has put

him in the middle of helping to resolve some of the nation's biggest problems.

From New Orleans rebuilding after Katrina to the bankruptcy of Detroit.

Coronavirus is a totally different disaster.

The hobbled response from government will make the role of philanthropy as important as ever.

But Walker firmly believes that philanthropy cannot replace government.

Let's be very, very clear.

We in philanthropy without competent, robust, and informed government cannot be

effective in our work. Part of their work is shoring up the nonprofit sector as quickly as possible.

Here Walker talk about what he and other foundations in New York, Chicago, Seattle, and elsewhere

are doing to help small non-profits, restaurant workers and others

reeling from our new stay-at-home reality right now.

Darren Walker, thank you very much for coming back to the podcast.

I'm happy to be back Jonathan.

So every year you send out a New Year's letter and this year's letter was entitled how we move

forward during the year ahead and in it you decry how we're losing ground on a

whole host of issues that democratic values and

institutions remain in retreat. That's a quote from the letter. You also say in

the letter, quote, this is a time to step up, not check out, a time to reenlist,

re-engage, and reconnect.

And you ask a question that is pretty remarkable,

...