Spending Down and Making Shift Happen
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Ruth Shaber
This story is part of the Architects of Impact series, highlighting stories of innovation that demonstrate how our Community is mobilizing to ensure a world that works for all people and the planet.
Ruth Shaber stepped into philanthropy with decades of experience caring for patients, leading complex institutions, and confronting—up close—the structural inequities that shape health and economic outcomes for women and girls.
A practicing OB/GYN for many years, Ruth also served as a senior executive at Kaiser Permanente, where she helped guide one of the nation’s largest healthcare systems. The dual clinical and institutional perspective informed her understanding of how systems succeed or fail the people they are meant to serve. It also laid the groundwork for what would become her life’s next chapter: reimagining how philanthropy can drive gender, racial, and economic justice.
Actively Shifting Power
Ruth is the Founder and President of Tara Health Foundation, a spend-down foundation committed to advancing health and economic justice by transferring 100 percent of its resources to movement leaders working at the intersection of race and gender. From the outset, Tara Health has embraced a bold premise: philanthropy should not merely fund solutions, but actively shift power to the people closest to the problems.
That philosophy has shaped every aspect of the foundation’s work, from its grantmaking to its investment strategy. Tara Health committed early to deploying 100 percent of its assets—across grants, investments, and influence—in service of its mission, and to spending down those assets within a defined time horizon. The foundation is on track to complete its work by the end of the decade, leaving behind not an institution, but a strengthened ecosystem of organizations equipped to carry the work forward. “Solutions need to endure beyond a single philanthropist’s lifetime,” she says.
Ruth’s journey into philanthropy was accelerated and shaped by her early involvement with Forward Global, starting in 2015. “I joined Forward Global very early in my philanthropy career,” she says. “The cohort model boosted my knowledge and confidence as I embarked on this journey. I still go back to my notebooks from that year to trigger my memories about the people we met and what I learned.”
A Women-Aligned Mission
One project from that time remains influential for her. Working with the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, Ruth commissioned research on what became known as the “XX Factor”—an investor’s guide to understanding what truly benefits women. The framework continues to inform her giving and investing decisions today, underscoring her belief that rigorous analysis and values-driven action must go hand in hand.
Even as Ruth’s work evolves, Forward Global has remained a vital space for learning and contribution. “Forward Global gives me an opportunity to think about the cutting edge of philanthropy, to think about trends I might not otherwise hear about,” she says. “It’s also an opportunity for me to influence others—to share my successes and failures with the community so my peers can grow and develop their own programs.” All of Tara Health Foundation’s materials on its spend-down strategy and 100 percent mission-aligned approach are publicly available online.
At Tara Health Foundation, that ethos of shared learning has become a deliberate strategy for seeding anchor organizations that steward resources through both nonprofit and for-profit models. The foundation has helped launch and grow Rhia Ventures, a nonprofit advancing reproductive health innovation; RH Capital, its affiliated for-profit investment firm mobilizing private capital for maternal and reproductive health; Orchid Capital Collective, a for-profit platform advancing gender and racial equity; and the Center for Inclusive Business at Businesses for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit working with global companies to embed inclusive business practices. Together, these organizations reflect Ruth’s polycapital approach—deploying grants and investments side by side to drive lasting systems change.
Planting the Seeds for Future Change
As Tara Health Foundation approaches the final chapters of its work, Ruth’s focus has shifted toward storytelling—not as a communications exercise, but as a core strategy for systems change. “Tara Health Foundation is planting seeds and creating sustainable organizations as we decrease the amount of assets that we control ourselves,” she explains. “Being able to tell the story of what we’ve done, and the impact that we’ve had, is an essential part of our work.”
She is clear-eyed about why this matters. “People do not change their behavior based on science,” Ruth says. “They change their behavior based on stories. If I want to make a difference in the world, I have to learn how to tell the stories that actually move people’s hearts.”
Looking ahead, Ruth remains deeply engaged. She continues to serve as Board Chair of Rhia Ventures, which plans to launch a catalytic investment fund in the coming years. She is also beginning a new chapter internationally, with plans to launch a project in Portugal called Futura—a residential impact space designed to support young Portuguese female changemakers.
Underlying all of this work is Ruth’s conviction that this moment demands courage from philanthropy. “The world is on fire in so many ways—climate change, war, poverty, and the current political state in the United States,” she says. “While philanthropy may not be the permanent solution, it needs to be the spark that drives those permanent solutions. This is the time when philanthropy has to step up.”
Through Tara Health Foundation, her leadership within Forward Global, and the ecosystems she continues to help build, Ruth Shaber is modeling what that bold, power-shifting philanthropy can look like in practice—grounded in experience, guided by values, and driven by an unwavering belief in the possibility of change.
