Transformative Philanthropy
It’s messier, deeper, and more profound than I anticipated.
By Ruth Shaber, MD, Founder and President
When I founded Tara Health in 2014, I carried the certainty of a physician. I was convinced that clear metrics, evidence-based solutions, and innovative tools would solve systemic problems. With decades of experience in women's healthcare and systems engineering, I set out to apply medical rigor to philanthropy, believing that data-driven decisions and creative deployment of capital would transform the lives of women and girls. I believed our approach was transformative, but the journey ahead would challenge not just our methods, but our core assumptions about transformation itself.
From the start, we committed to aligning 100% of our assets — financial and human — with our mission. Working with the Foust/Meeker team at Merrill Lynch, we began in public markets, building what we hoped would be a fully mission-aligned portfolio. When we found metrics and evidence lacking, we deployed grant dollars to develop frameworks like the XX Factor and Four for Women, adding tools and rigor to the field of gender-lens investing. As our corpus grew from $10 million to $82 million, we expanded into private investments, taking direct stakes in companies advancing women's health and bringing other funders alongside us to build lasting infrastructure in the field.
This comprehensive approach to deploying capital remains core to our work today. We match capital types to problems: blending grants with low-interest loans for abortion clinics, providing capital alongside technical expertise for early-stage companies.
But our commitment has always extended beyond writing checks. From the beginning, we believed that contributing our time, networks, and expertise was essential to strengthening our partners' work. In our early years, this meant my hands-on involvement in initiatives like reproductive healthcare quality measurement with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Center for Youth Wellness's groundbreaking work to advance evidence-based interventions for children exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
Today, this same commitment to building deep relationships as catalysts for change guides our partnerships with our anchor organizations: Rhia Ventures, Orchid Capital Collective, the BSR Center for Business and Social Justice, and the Oasis Institute (website forthcoming). As we move through our spend-down, our fundamental belief remains unchanged: transforming unjust systems requires leveraging every resource — grant dollars, investment capital, and the power of people working in genuine partnership with one another.
The Profound Messiness of Power
Yet, even as we built these innovative structures and solutions, questions began to surface that would fundamentally reshape my understanding of power, expertise, and transformation. The metrics and frameworks we developed reflected deeper assumptions about whose knowledge counted and what impact meant. The certainty I'd relied on as a physician and philanthropist - the very certainty that had guided my entire professional life — was about to be challenged in ways I never expected.
What began to unfold through relationships with partners and grantees was messier, deeper, and more profound than I could have anticipated. It pushed me to examine not just how we deployed resources, but the deeper assumptions about power and change that I had never thought to question — assumptions that had shaped not just my work, but my sense of self.
As we kick off a new chapter of our work, focused on telling our stories and grappling with our learnings, I look forward to sharing more about my ongoing journey — one that continues to surface new questions, challenges, and joys even as I write these words. I invite you to watch the video below where I begin unpacking my journey through a more personal lens.
