For episode 259 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Inès d'Haultfoeuille, Chief Operating Officer of Egregor, a non-profit dedicated to catalysing social and environmental transformations, playing roles that range from accelerator to venture philanthropist and strategic advisor. Their team is truly global, and their work reaches across climate, education, social justice, civic engagement, and more.
If you work in the nonprofit or impact space, the last few years have been brutal. Funding is being cut. Donor priorities are shifting, sometimes overnight. Geopolitical instability is reshaping where resources flow and who gets left out. And through all of it, the needs on the ground aren't shrinking. They're growing.
We've talked about this on the show before, with organizations working in Ukraine, in Afghanistan, in Tanzania, in Somaliland. The pattern keeps repeating. The people doing the most essential work are often the ones with the least support, the least stability, and the least room to breathe.
Egregor was born out of a conviction that social and environmental innovators deserve better than isolation, precarious funding, and systems designed without them. And what I find compelling about their model is where they choose to focus. Rather than just writing cheques, they work to remove the structural, financial, and logistical barriers that stand between an innovator and their vision. Because so often, the bottleneck isn't the idea but everything surrounding it.
In today’s discussion you’ll learn:
🌍 The biggest challenges facing NGOs and impact innovators today, including funding cuts, shifting donor priorities, and geopolitical instability
💡 Why the old playbook isn't enough anymore, and what it takes to think outside the box in a rapidly changing impact landscape
🛠️ How Egregor is breaking down the structural, financial, and logistical barriers that keep brilliant innovators from realizing their vision
🤖 The role of technology like AI and blockchain in helping impact builders work smarter, and how to separate genuine tools from the noise
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📉 The "missing middle" is where too many great organizations die: There's a dangerous gap in the impact sector that doesn't get talked about enough. Organizations that have proven their model and are ready to grow often hit a wall, caught between maintaining day-to-day operations and finding the capacity to scale. Egregor's research found this is precisely where so many promising organizations stall out or fail entirely. Very few make it through to create the systemic change they're capable of. It's not a failure of vision or commitment. It's a structural gap in how we fund and support impact, and closing it may be one of the highest-leverage things we can do for the sector.
🤝 Working with organizations, not for them, is the only approach that works: Every nonprofit is different. Every context is different. The challenges facing a climate organization in Senegal look nothing like those facing a child protection group in Germany, and a one-size-fits-all model will fail both. That's why Egregor's approach centers on genuine partnership and tailored, long-term support rather than a standardized program applied from the outside. It means listening first, respecting the expertise that already exists in these organizations, and building support around what they actually need. It's slower and harder than a template, but it's what real impact requires.
✨ This is a historic turning point, and the innovators are already here: We're at a historic turning point in philanthropy, and facing climate, democratic, and social crises all at once, the urgency to anchor our ideals in tangible realities has never been greater. What gives hope isn't a technology or a funding mechanism. It's people. The innovators doing this work are women and men who take action, and who through their daily deeds embody the possibility of a fairer world. They already exist, and they're already building. The role of everyone else, funders, supporters, and communities alike, is to give them the means to go further and faster without betraying the reason they started in the first place.
03:35 - To start, I'd love to hear about your journey. You've spent your career in humanitarian and development work. What drew you to this path, and what led you to Egregor?
11:50 - For listeners who aren’t familiar with Egregor, can you please introduce the mission and the problem you’re trying to solve?
18:05 - Tell me more about the “missing middle gap” where, according to your research, many impact organizations fail.
23:30 - Egregor was born out of a conviction that social and environmental innovators deserve better. Today, the impact landscape is incredibly complex: funding cuts, shifting donor priorities, geopolitical instability, and growing needs. Talk to me about the first year of Egregor’s operations and the organizations you worked with.
30:50 - Technology plays an important role in your work. How do you see technology, whether that's new tools, AI, or even Web3, helping impact builders work smarter and scale in today's environment?
37:50 - There's a lot of hype out there about technology solving every problem. As someone grounded in the realities of humanitarian and development work, how do you separate the reality from the noise, and keep the focus on real impact?
45:20 - For listeners who want to learn more about Egregor, support your work, or get involved as an innovator or an expert in your community, where should they go?
51:10 - In the 2025 Annual report, Co-Founder of Egregor, Guillaume Soto Mayor, shares some words that spoke to me: “We are at a historic turning point in philanthropy. Faced with the multiple crises surrounding us – climate, democratic, social – the urgency to anchor ideals in tangible realities has never been greater. The innovators we support are precisely these people: women and men who take action, who through their daily deeds embody the possibility of a fairer world. Our role is to give them the means to go further, faster, without betraying their raison d’être.” What gives you hope that humanity can rise to the challenge and seize this moment to build a fairer world?
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