They say necessity is the mother of invention and foster care has the potential to be one of the most inventive systems in existence, because necessity is everywhere. When the standard playbook doesn’t work, we’re forced to get creative. To try something different and build something that actually works for kids and families in our communities.
When you look at the foster care system, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of problems. For a long time, the default response has been to tackle each crisis as it pops up—one family, one child, one emergency at a time. And while the intention behind that is to help, it often leaves us playing a game of endless checkers while the root issues remain untouched.
Today, we sit down with Dan Vogel, the founder of the Flourish Fund. Dan spent years working on massive, complex strategic challenges in government and philanthropy before turning his focus toward the foster care system. He’s here to talk about what it looks like to move from playing checkers to playing chess—why innovation matters in child welfare, and how knowing better can finally help us do better for vulnerable children and families.
P.S. Jason mentions two other episodes you may want to check out, Episode 13 - Goat Rodeo: Driving Change and Navigating Chaos and Episode 24 - Nothing Wasted: Using what we already have.
