Creativity & Relationships Help Secure Grants – Megan Pater, CEO/Founder of Fund Nation & ECE Solutions
Release Date: 03/24/2026
Innovative Climate Finance – Kanika Singh, Milken Institute, Director of Catalytic Capital
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“We're seeing hurricanes, four of the 10 most damaging hurricanes in the United States happened in the last 10 years. Recovery and rebuild continues in many cases. Last year we had the world's most expensive wildfire on record in Los Angeles. These are market failures. Why are these things happening? Something is misaligned. Is it we're not taking care of the natural environment? Is it that our built environment, our buildings and our structures are not able to cope? Where are the policies? Where are the updated building codes?...Now these storms are happening more frequently and with...
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How Stories Can Shift Culture – Melissa Jun Rowley, Author of "Beyond The Mic Drop: How Stories Can Shift Culture, Power & Policy"
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“What are the stories that people can participate in and see themselves in? I think that's one of the keys that we can unlock when it comes to the whole climate narrative is telling stories that build the scaffolding blocks to a larger narrative that people want to be a part of, and we need to make it feel inevitable….The way that justice prevails, whether it's environmental justice or any kind of justice, I think it's that the leaders make it feel inevitable. And that's the climate movement's job. And I think we have every opportunity and ability to do that." Melissa Jun Rowley on...
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An Air Force Veteran on Bipartisan Climate And Energy Policy – U.S. Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA)
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“While the word ‘climate’ may be politically charged for some, the need for affordable, reliable, and secure energy is something we can all agree on. Americans are calling for action, and as Members of Congress it’s our responsibility to deliver. If we want long-term solutions that address both our constituents' concerns and growing climate risks, we must work together to strengthen our energy and climate security with urgency.” As we in the U.S. commemorate Memorial Day this week and express gratitude for the sacrifice of thousands of servicemembers on behalf...
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Impact Investing In New Hands In New Ways– Jolyne Caruso, Financial Executive, Investor, Wealth Advisor
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“When you look at where families invest across the spectrum of sustainable and impact investing, climate is really at the forefront. They think about that because, look at our environment, look at the food supply… because of environmental issues. Not withstanding the tariffs too….These are issues that have to be segmented and families are doing the work and they're putting their capital in…(F)amilies really are more and more values aligning their investments, and there's a blurring (of the) line between philanthropy and catalytic investing so that they can invest in climate and...
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New Business Models for Philanthropy – Amy Dornbusch, Atlas Daughters, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Investor
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
"Atlas Daughters is a social venture I launched that creates immersive travel experiences for mothers, grandmothers, and their children — bringing families directly to the NGO projects most worthy of investment and ripe for scale. We identify organizations with proven, high-impact work in areas like sustainability, biodiversity, climate, and global health, and we connect them to a community of female funders ready to help them grow." Amy Dorbusch on Electric Ladies Podcast Women invest, spend and donate differently than men do, and with the great wealth transfer putting trillions more money...
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People Leveraging Carbon Markets To Keep Their Land – Stacey Solie, Coproducer of the Documentary "From The Ground Up: Voices From The Carbon Market"
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“If you don't tell your stories, then no one will ever know, …Basically I just said, I think we should tell the positive stories and we should do it through the people…Let's actually just go and meet the people at all levels from the people that are involved in the projects and organizing them. Also the people that are participating in them and benefiting from them and find out what they say. How does this change your life? Is this actually happening? Did trees actually get planted? Did this well actually get plugged?." Stacey Solie on Electric Ladies Podcast Who are the regular...
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Managing IT in the Midst of a Tech Revolution - Elizabeth Hackenson, Chief Information Officer, Schneider Electric
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“We realized early on with our digital transformation that really what we're trying to do is digitize processes and …we really want to transform. But the people that own these business processes are stakeholders, they're in sales, they're in operations, they're in HR, finance, supply chain, so we needed them before we could get started on digitally architecting a solution. So… we take a senior leader from a function and ops or a business unit and ask them to be the business process leader…. and we match you to an IT leader who's also quite senior. So these are VP SVP roles and they're...
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Earth Day Career Advice From 6 Extraordinary Women Leaders
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“Try as best as you can not to be fear-driven. I think we are so driven by fear that we're never going to be enough, that we aren't going to contribute enough….(Y)ou actually are enough just as you are, right? Take this day, do what you can. Impact the people around you.…Become partners in your career with unlikely people, people who don't think like you, people who aren't doing the same career as you. You'll get a lot more joy out of, I think, your career because of the cross-pollination.” Dr. Katherine Gergen-Barnett on Electric Ladies Podcast This Earth Day, we want to share...
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The State of Energy Today Might Surprise You - Lisa Jacobson, BCSE on the 2026 Energy Factbook
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“You see corporate procurement of clean energy, predominantly renewable energy, but there's fleet investments, there are efficiency improvements in buildings and on campuses underway….but it was a little different than what we'd seen in recent years. It wasn't just solar and wind. There was an interest in 24/7 reliable clean energy in particular by the tech industries, which won't surprise you, but things like nuclear, geothermal, other integrated technologies like solar and storage…So that's kind of an interesting set of dynamics because it's really diversifying the players in the...
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How To Talk "Climate" To Keep People Safe – Allison Agsten, USC Center for Climate Journalism & Communications
Electric Ladies Podcast - Women Leaders Discuss Careers, Trends, Technologies and Innovation in Energy, Climate, and Corporate Responsibility
“If there are people who are willing to talk to you about it, the first thing you got to do is listen….I grew up in a very rural area and it's very conservative also. And when I go home, I don't talk about climate change. I do talk about what's going on with hunting season. 'Oh, there's no deer this year. Why do you think that is? Tell me about the rain'….It is again about that pivoting and you have to understand what's important to the people you're talking to… I might say, 'I just upgraded my mom's generator. It's great because with all the outages we're having out here, now she can...
info_outline“Number one reason that people get denied and they didn't read the eligibility criteria. So yeah, very, very important …If you don't have the qualifications or something for something, you partner with somebody who does and you guys go after it together.… If you don't know something, that gives you a reason to call the vendor and start that conversation and get that personal relationship with them.…Relationships, relationships, relationships. It really is the key to grants. It's really not about what you write, it's about who you're speaking to ahead of time." Megan Pater on Electric Ladies Podcast
Nonprofits and mission focused small businesses are facing historic funding threats at the moment due mostly to massive cuts in federal funding under the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress and related political pressures. The good news is that this crisis is also an opportunity for these nonprofits and mission-focused businesses to think differently about how they fund their operations and their goals. How?
Listen to Megan Pater, CEO/Founder of Fund Nation and ECE Solutions on how to find and secure grants in this enlightening conversation with Electric Ladies Podcast host Joan Michelson. She also happens to be a member of the Native American Osage Nation.
You’ll hear about:
● How you don't have to be a nonprofit -- even if the grant criteria requires one.
● How relationships, partnerships and creative strategic thinking are key.
● The magic of Megan's database to help small businesses and nonprofits secure grants
● Plus, career advice, such as:
“Relationships. If you are seeking to move even laterally in your career, just making some type of change, you need to know what you're getting into, speak to somebody who's been there, reach out for help.… There's so many programs that are government-funded or city- or county-funded that you can enter into and they will raise you up…There's no reason for you not to feel supported.…But there's so many resources out there that are free and available that we already pay for with our taxes, and if you're not utilizing them, you are hurting yourself….We've already paid for them when we pay our taxes and people don't utilize them enough.”
Megan Pater on Electric Ladies Podcast
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You’ll also like:
· Creative Leverage for Good -- Kate Williams, CEO of 1% for the Planet
· You Can Make A Difference Where You Are -- Laur Hesse Fisher, MIT's Environmental Solutions Initiative
· Scaling Women Climate Entrepreneurs -- Zainab Salbi, Daughters for Earth
· Connecting With Curiosity -- with Jennifer Hough, Author, TEDx Speaker, Advisor
· Corporate Philanthropy At America’s Largest Bottler – with Ann Canela, Head of Corporate Giving at Niagara Water and Niagara Cares, It’s Philanthropic Arm
· New Venture Capital Models For Women and CleanTech – with Cecile Blilious, Veteran Venture Capital investor and Co-Founder, Venture ESG
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