Innovations in International Philanthropy Symposium
New England International Donors (NEID) and The Philanthropic Initiative’s Center for Global Philanthropy are co-hosting the 2018 Innovations in International Philanthropy Symposium to propel forward the capacity and impact of internationally-oriented philanthropists, including individuals, families, foundations, investors, and corporate funders. The Symposium will provide funders a place to network, learn about relevant trends in international philanthropy, discover opportunities for collaboration, and gain practical, hands-on skills to increase the impact of their international giving.
SHIFTING PATTERNS: Building Effective Teams for Social Impact
With increased demands for bold solutions to urgent problems, high expectations for impact, and limited resources, we can end up taking our relationships with co-workers for granted. However, it's the quality of these relationships that ultimately determines our success.
Building Effective Teams for Social Impact is a 5-month program, based in Washington, DC, which is designed for nonprofit, social enterprise, and socially responsible business leaders who want to find out what's really getting in the way of effective teamwork and develop the skills to collaboratively solve these challenges.
MELTON FOUNDATION: Global Citizenship Conference 2017
CONVENERS.ORG MEMBER EVENT
Every year, the Melton Foundation convenes for a week-long Global Citizenship Conference (GCC) in order to provide and exchange tools and resources that enable solving pressing global challenges.
The GCC convenes about 100 Global Citizenship advocates, practitioners, and experts from across the globe to build a community of global citizens, encourage collaborative learning, and expand the outreach of global citizenship.
Once again, it’s that time of the year - Akwaaba!
At our 26th GCC, we are gathering in Ghana from 13-19 August 2017 to help answer one big question:
What is the role of a Global Citizen in a world that is in flux?
With the increasing unpredictability and interconnected nature of our world, in which today's greatest
challenges, from climate change to poverty, inequality to displacement, natural resource depletion to
overpopulation, are global in nature the call for a paradigm shift is becoming increasingly louder. We
call this Global Citizenship!
Be a part of this experience and join our journey towards global citizenship today! REGISTER AT http://bit.ly/RegisterGCC2017 (registration open until 30 June 2017, limited spaces available)
WHARTON SOCIAL IMPACT INITIATIVE: Wharton Social Impact Conference
The Wharton Social Impact Conference brings together a network of impact-oriented business and community leaders with the shared goal of driving sustainable social change. This flagship conference spans various sectors and pulls from the experience of industry practitioners.
This event will bring together a community of corporate social “change-makers”, social entrepreneurs, impact investors, nonprofit and government executives, philanthropists, and university students with the shared vision of driving social change. Together we explore questions around social impact and business: what works, how, and why?
This event is presented by the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, in collaboration with students from the MBA Wharton Social Impact Club, and students from the Wharton MBA Program for Executives.
Current students and nonprofit employees receive discounted admission.
If you are interested in learning more about leveraging business to create positive social, environmental, and financial impact, we welcome you to join us. Fill out this form to sign up to receive updates on the conference, including exclusive early-bird ticket pricing and information on speakers.
NCRC: Annual Conference
Join NCRC and leaders from business, government, community non-profits, media and academia March 28-30, 2017 in Washington, D.C. for cutting edge dialogue and hands-on trainings, workshops, plenaries, and topical sessions on issues affecting America’s communities.
Why Attend the 2017 NCRC Annual Conference?
This event is the largest national gathering of community non-profits, policymakers, government officials, small businesses, media, and academia–all focused on how together we can create a more just economic framework to improve the lives of American families, our workers, our older adults, our children and our environment, while strengthening global access to credit and capital.
For nonprofit executives and practitioners, the conference is an opportunity to learn about successful strategies used in other communities, to understand how non-traditional solutions can address existing and emerging concerns, and to exchange ideas with colleagues from across the country. Topics will include community efforts to ensure consumer protection and responsible banking and lending, economic revitalization, workforce development strategies, how to use data for advocacy, and addressing the needs of older adults.
For fair housing professionals, the conference is an opportunity to engage with colleagues on issues such as mortgage servicing, exclusionary zoning, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, disparate impact, and other important community concerns. This includes gaining a clear understanding of emerging legal issues and cases, and how they may affect local communities.
For local, state, and federal policymakers, the conference is a chance to learn about the concerns that are at the forefront of community efforts across the country. These issues include consumer protection, age-friendly banking standards and practices, local responsible banking ordinances, and new opportunities for communities to work with and influence banks and regulators. It is also a chance for community leaders to hear from people who are in a position to enact policy changes that can improve communities.
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA: frank
CONVENERS.ORG MEMBER
The frank gathering is a pipeline for creating new strategies and talent that drive social change. Communications professionals, academics, researchers, artists, philanthropists, business leaders and advocates – they come together to connect evidence to action for on-the-ground impact. People arrive hungry for solutions, become humbled by the challenge and leave empowered to make big change.
Our theme this year is curiosity, an essential ingredient for empathy, drawing attention and driving change.
The One Thing You Need To Collaborate Effectively
by David Sawyer & David Ehrlichman
“The fundamental insight of 21st century physics has yet to penetrate the social world,” Peter Senge wrote. “Relationships are more important than things.”
Human systems are effective when the relationships between people are strong and authentic. Consequently, the most important currency in any collaborative effort is trust. But what actually is trust?
Fernando Flores and Robert Solomon, in their seminal book Building Trust: In Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life, make a distinction between simple trust, blind trust, and authentic trust. Simple trust is the untroubled, unthinking trust that young children have for their parents. Blind trust is the refusal even to consider any evidence or argument that one should not be trusting, the kind of trust demanded perhaps, by some religious cult leaders, or that we might feel in spite of mounting evidence that one’s spouse is cheating.
Authentic trust – what we call “trust for impact” – is concerned with the ongoing integrity of relationships, and is mature, prudent, measured. It is a choice, not a state. It is not dependent on mere familiarity. It is something one does – not something one has.
As they write, “authentic trust in business and politics provides ample opportunity for complex and cooperative projects that otherwise would have been unthinkable. Authentic trust, as opposed to simple and blind trust, does not exclude or deny distrust, but rather accepts it and goes on to transcend it in action.”
While there may be significant beliefs that we do not share in common, authentic trust is all about finding the sliver of ground that we do have in common. It means engaging in generative, constructive, and meaningful ways despite whatever differences exist, allowing us to work together even when personal disagreements arise, and even see our differences as potential assets.
For widespread change to occur we must find a way to choose trust, especially with those who are very different than ourselves. Effective collaboration, not to mention the future of democracy, depends on it.
Participants in a large, complex collaboration can build a capacity for finding common ground—and it doesn’t have to take years. To learn how, read The Tactics of Trust, as seen in Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Winter ’16 issue.
David Sawyer and David Ehrlichman are partners at Converge, a strategy and design firm for systems impact. Converge partners with committed leaders, within organizations and across sectors, to build trust, take action, and work together to achieve uncommon results. Their current work includes building a network of 20 cross-sector organizations across the Santa Cruz Mountains to steward the region for generations to come, and designing a network to improve coordination of care for people with serious illnesses across the UCSF Health system. They served as design and systems directors for the New Leadership Network.