Just Giving: Global Social Change Philanthropy
CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Pre-Conference Events - Monday, June 7th - Tuesday, June 8th - Wednesday, June 9th
Please visit this site regularly for updates, additions and modifications to the program.

PRE-CONFERENCE EVENTS

The Gender and Global Grantmaking Workshop
Begins at 6 pm on Saturday, June 5th, runs all day Sunday, June 6th and ends at noon on Monday, June 7th

The Gender and Global Grantmaking Workshop, created through a partnership between Grantmakers Without Borders and the International Network of Women's Funds (www.inwf.org), is a unique peer learning event that helps grantmakers create effective and innovative ways to integrate gender equality into their grantmaking and to use it as tool to strengthen social justice goals. Using a framework developed specially for Gw/oB by gender experts, workshop participants dig deep into the meaning and practice of gender equality. Through small group discussion and role play, they share experiences and strategies for engaging colleagues and grantees in gender equality issues, and they leave the workshop with a plan for introducing or strengthening a gender perspective within their grantmaking. Following the workshop, participants join a learning community of gender experts and past workshop alum whose members continue to learn and support one another in this critical but often challenging work. For grantmakers who are committed to promoting deep justice through their work, the Gender and Global Grantmaking Workshop is not to be missed. For more information on the Gender and Global Grantmaking Workshop, please contact John Harvey at john@gwob.net. A separate registration fee is required to participate.

Regional Working Group Meetings: Meso-America, Haiti and Africa
Convening on Monday, June 7th, from 9 am to 5 pm

Grantmakers Without Borders facilitates spaces for grantmakers working in several different geographic areas to come together for networking and peer learning. This year, grantmakers working in three regions—Haiti, Meso-America and Africa—will convene for a day of dialogue and strategizing just prior to the formal opening of the conference. Each event will start with "Speed Networking" to allow participants to get to know one another. Then, a plenary discussion will cover key issues in the region. Following lunch, a series of small-group discussions, their topics chosen through an open space process, will allow participants to network around the most urgent issues they are facing. The day will end with a discussion of how participants can best move forward with their grantmaking work in these regions, individually and in partnership with others. These once-a-year meetings provide an exceptional opportunity for grantmakers working in Haiti, Meso-America and Africa to learn from their peers and to forge lasting professional connections. A separate registration fee is required to participate.
Click here for the Haiti meeting agenda
Click here for the Africa meeting agenda
Click here for the Meso-America meeting agenda

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

MONDAY, JUNE 7TH

Conference Orientation and Speed Networking
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Conference organizers will provide a brief run-through of the conference agenda to help participants navigate the program. Then, we'll have some fun with the first of several facilitated networking sessions: Speed Networking, like "speed dating" but for making professional connections. Make fast first contact with conference participants to discover the colleagues you'd most like to speak with later on during the conference.

Welcome Reception
7:00 to 9:00 pm
Relax after your arrival, catch up with old colleagues and meet new ones at a festive conference welcome reception. With refreshments, music and good cheer.

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TUESDAY, JUNE 8TH

The Advisor is In
A choice of times throughout the conference
Philanthropic advisors, coaches and other specialists on leadership, management and strategy will offer free 20-minute one-on-one sessions to help conference participants find solutions to challenges they are facing.

Healthy Conference Center
A choice of times throughout the conference
Conference participants looking for an energy boost or a mental break can pay a visit to the Healthy Conference Center, featuring ongoing sessions of guided meditation, acupuncture, and qigong. Offered by Acupuncturists Without Borders.

Networking Breakfast: "My Journey"
8:00 to 9:00 am
In this facilitated networking session, conference participants will meet over breakfast to share stories of their journeys in philanthropy and in global social change.

Opening General Sessions:

Anatomy of a Global Donor
9:00 to 9:30 am
"What does it take to be an effective global grantmaker?" is the million dollar question in our often soul-searching field. John Harvey, Gw/oB's Executive Director since its founding in 2000, will open the conference with a lively and humorous take on what he's learned about good grantmaking practice based on nearly 25 years of observing Gw/oB members and other global grantmakers in action. John has presented "Anatomy of a Global Donor" to audiences in Seattle, Chicago and Boston and is pleased to be bringing it to the Gw/oB conference for the first time.

What Is Justice?
9:30 to 11:00 am
Grantmakers Without Borders and many of our members regularly use the term "social justice" to describe their work and to explain their theories of change. But from time to time, we sense discomfort with this term, and we wonder why this should be so. Aren't all of our colleagues in the grantmaking field seeking to bring about a more just world? Also, many of us would say that we know justice when we see it, but we are hard-pressed to actually define it. The morning's general session will feature a lively discuss of "social justice": what it means and how it is authentically practiced in the field of global social change grantmaking. With Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff Project; Adrienne Brown, The US Social Forum and the Ruckus Society; Gopal Dayaneni, Movement Generation; Jeff Campbell, The Christensen Fund; and Camille Chalmers, Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA) (Haiti)

Breakout Workshops
11:15 am to 1:00 pm

Rebuilding Haiti
Early in 2010, the people of Haiti experienced the greatest natural disaster of modern times, a devastating earthquake that brought about the death of more than 200,000 people and the displacement of over a million more. This workshop will explore what it was that made Haiti so vulnerable to this kind of destruction and what's behind Haiti's seemingly intractable destitution. We'll look at both domestic and international forces that have kept Haiti so poor. We'll hear the latest updates from the field, and we'll explore how grantmakers can best support the Haitian people people's aspirations for prosperity and peace. With Leonie Hermantin, Lambi Fund of Haiti; Beverly Bell, Other Worlds; Wendy Flick, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; and Camille Chalmers, Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA) (Haiti)

Grantmaker Due Diligence under Reformed National Security Rules
The climate for US-based global grantmakers changed dramatically following the September 11th attacks, when several branches of government began throwing up new obstacles for the charitable sector to do its work economically and effectively. While significant challenges remain, conditions have improved under the Obama Administration, and there is a new openness to engage with the charitable sector, including with foundations, on issues that concern us. This workshop will explore the current policy environment for international charitable work, what advocates for reform are recommending, and how funders can help achieve reforms that would greatly facilitate their global grantmaking. With Kay Guinane, Charity and Security Network; Dale Needles, Global Fund for Women; and Laila Al-Marayati, KinderUSA

The Power of Authentic Partnership
"If you've come because you want to help me, you're wasting your time. If you've come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together," wrote Lila Watson, Aboriginal educator and activist. Many of us strive in our lives—as grantmakers, activists, and members of the human race—to build real partnerships across historic divides like race, class and power and to challenge those attitudes and assumptions that keep us apart. Thorough the sharing of stories and experiences, this workshop will challenge participants to ask what it is we need to unlearn in terms of our habits, assumptions, and behaviors, what it takes to build relationships of trust and solidarity, and how we can work together to build partnerships that sustain and matter. With Ocean Robbins, YES!; and Shilpa Jain, Global Collaborative

Green at the Grassroots: Supporting Organic Production and Sustainable Consumption
Throughout the global South, grassroots communities are combining the best traditional practices with new innovations to sustain both themselves and the environments in which they live. Looking at several case studies from Latin America that have broad applicability to Asia and Africa as well, this workshop will illustrate how civil society organizations are bringing about systemic change in the management of their communities' natural environment and its resources and how funders can support efforts to revive agro-ecological techniques in fragile ecosystems, raise environmental awareness, and strengthen economic activity in the fair trade and organic sectors. With Gabriela Boyer, Inter-American Foundation; Alica Freitas, Instituto Realice (Brazil); Alexander Marin, FTDE (Ecuador); Magali Olivo Hernandez, Centro de Formación Integral para Promotores Indígenas A.C. (Mexico)

Securing Reproductive Rights for Everyone
The current state of affairs for reproductive rights—including access to comprehensive sex education, family planning and safe abortion care—presents both opportunities and challenges. This workshop will describe some of the cutting-edge work being done today to help guarantee and expand reproductive rights for all around the world. Come to learn how funders active in this field have responded to the curtailment of reproductive rights and how they have worked proactively to guarantee and expand those rights, often with targeted, strategic grants that make a real difference in these important battles. With Nicole Grey, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Eugenia López Uribe, MARIA Abortion Fund for Social Justice (Mexico); and Niki Msipa-Ndebele, Ipas

Networking Lunch: Participant Roundtables
1:00 to 2:15 pm
Conference participants are invited to convene colleagues for networking discussions on grantmaking issues of shared interest.

Lunchtime Briefing
Debates in Global Justice Movements, a Decade On
1:00 to 2:15
Over the last decade, international coordination of social movements - global justice, anti-war, climate justice, and many sector-based networks - was reflected in converging activism, strategy and increasingly politicized narratives. Still, divergences remain along South-North, class, race and other cleavages. Taking global examples and South African lessons in international solidarity, the WSF, grassroots ownership, protest waves, environmentalism, health advocacy, anti-privatization and reactions to economic crisis (including xenophobia), Professor Patrick of the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies considers potentials for movement-building in coming years.

Breakout Workshops
2:30 to 4:15 pm

Collegial Partnerships: Funder Collaboration for Social Change
Collaboration among funders is as important as ever in these difficult economic times. Two social change grantmakers, Grassroots International and American Jewish World Service, have been very successful in forging a model of funder collaboration they call "collegial partnership", whose elements include collaborative grantmaking, joint site visits, collaborative analysis, and joint advocacy and education. This workshop will explore this and other funder collaborations, looking at their potential benefits and challenges for both funders and the social change organizations they support, and also what elements must be in place to allow funders to successfully collaborate. With Angela Martínez, American Jewish World Service; Carol Schachet, Grassroots International; and Rajasvini Bhansali, IDEX

Evaluating Policy and Advocacy Work
Among the most challenging programs to evaluate are those that involve policy and advocacy work, especially in global Southern contexts. This workshop will explore some of the recent trends in the field of policy and advocacy evaluation. We'll investigate logic modeling for policy and advocacy work and how to develop appropriate indicators of progress. We'll explore some of the challenges of evaluating advocacy in a non-US context. For example, what can be learned from one evaluation to the next given radically different policy environments across countries and regions, and are there different measures for success where civil society is weak or severely repressed? With Astrid Hendricks, The California Endowment; and Jared Raynor, TCC Group

Communities as Social Entrepreneurs: A Critical Look at Collective versus Individual Leadership
In recent years the philanthropic sector has been abuzz about "social entrepreneurs". But does this trend glorify the individual leader as hero while undervaluing the power of communities and social movements to make change, and does the model make sense in all contexts? For example, is it the most effective strategy for working with Indigenous communities where traditional leadership structures prevail? Is it the best strategy where women are severely marginalized, and standing out as individuals carries great risk? This session will explore our cultural biases on how change happens, and how best we can support the most effective agents of change—social entrepreneurs, communities and social movements alike. We'll also explore what kind of leadership is needed to address today's most urgent challenges, including climate change. With David Rothschild, Skoll Foundation; David Kramer, EcoLogic Development Fund; and Raul Cabrera, Rural Forestation and Progress Network Corporation (Ecuador)

Human Rights and the Environment: A Critical Nexus for Change
Environmental issues have often been viewed as distinct from human rights, despite the increasingly strong connection between environmental protection and the enjoyment of human rights. This is nowhere more apparent than in the growing problem of mega-development and resource extraction projects that threaten both the human rights of communities and the environment. This workshop will explore the nexus of human rights and the environment. We'll share stories from impacted communities, bring attendees up to date on important precedents being set in national and international law, and discuss how funders can become involved in this nascent field that bridges two traditionally siloed issues areas, offering tremendous opportunities for making change. With Roxanne Turnage, CS Fund; Anna Cederstav, InterAmerican Association for Environmental Defense; Astrid Puentes, InterAmerican Association for Environmental Defense (Mexico)

Networking Session: The Reciprocity Web
4:30 to 5:30 pm
We all know people, but do we truly comprehend just how mighty a tool our connections with others can be? In this facilitated networking session, we'll use a simple but creative tool called a Reciprocity Web to make connections with one another and—best of all—find ways to solve real-life problems by tapping into the rich Gw/oB network.

Grantmakers Without Borders 10th Anniversary Celebration
6:00 to 9:00 pm
2010 marks Grantmakers Without Borders' 10-year anniversary! Come celebrate a decade of making change as we honor the individuals and institutions that have helped to make Gw/oB a respected leader in the field of global social change philanthropy.

Gw/oB's 10th Anniversary Celebration is being generously sponsored by Strategic Philanthropy Ltd.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9TH

Networking Breakfast
9:00 to 10:00 am

Breakout Workshops
10:15 am to 12:00 pm

Empowering Adolescent Girls as a Development Strategy
Grantmaking programs may be "reaching" adolescent girls, but how many are able to unleash young women's potential as powerful agents of social change? In this session we'll examine both universal and contextual opportunities and obstacles in adolescent girls' pathways to empowerment, using as a starting point two model programs, one in rural Guatemala and one in urban Colombia, that have developed effective, innovative approaches to fostering young women's leadership. Staff from both programs, themselves young women, will share key insights, strategies, and lessons learned. Representatives from the US-based organizations will provide additional regional and global context, encouraging session participants to analyze their grantmaking from a gender and generational justice perspective and helping them find ways to become champions for grantmaking programs that responds to adolescent girls' realities and aspirations. With Andrea Lynch, EMpower-The Emerging Markets Foundation; Jennifer Catino, Population Council; Elvia Raquec, Abriendo Oportunidades (Guatemala); and Luz Estella Romero, Asociación Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho (Colombia)

A Grantmaker's Approach to Financial Assessment of Community-Based Organizations
Financial assessment is an important component of grantee review and due diligence, while sound financial management is an essential practice for non-profits. For grantmakers who work with grassroots community groups, gathering and deciphering financial information can be very difficult. Likewise, many grassroots groups struggle despite their best efforts to get funders the financial information requested from them. This workshop will provide practical tools that grantmakers can use to assess grantees' financial health and management systems. Workshop participants will explore the realities and constraints that community-based organizations face in financial management and learn strategies to strengthen and support grantee capacity for financial sustainability. With Yuri Futamura, New Field Foundation; Monica Larenas, Fund for Nonviolence; and Christine Reyes, Fund for Nonviolence

One of the best professional conferences I have ever attended. The combination of grassroots activists, NGOs and foundations was excellent. -Gw/oB conference participant

The Super-Engaged Donor: A Help or a Hindrance?
Some individual donors demand to be as engaged as possible in their grantees' work. They want to review and approve project budgets, visit project sites on a regular basis, meet with grantee partners and more. For some organizations, having such highly engaged donors is a welcome addition to oversight, monitoring and management. But for others, it's a nightmare of meddling, wrong-headed decision-making and conflicting priorities. Come explore these dynamics in a lively and frank discussion! With John Anner, East Meets West Foundation; Doan Phung, Fund for the Encouragement of Self-Reliance; and Dang Huong Giang, Action for the City (Vietnam)

Engaging Grantees in Grantmaker Processes
An increasing number of grantmakers are exploring ways to engage their grantees more directly in those grantmakers' work. They ask grantees to evaluate the effectiveness of the grantmaker and its relations with grantees. They invite grantees to make funding recommendations or to serve on advisory committees that make grantmaking decisions. Some even invite grantees onto their boards. While these practices offer great potential for sharing power and improving effectiveness, who is really served by them, and when are they more a hindrance than a help to grantees? Come learn about the ways in which funders are engaging their grantees and explore the challenges and opportunities of authentically engaging grantees in funding decision-making, monitoring and evaluation. With Sindhu M. Knotz, Center for Effective Philanthropy; Prativa Subedi, WACN (Nepal); and Katherine Zavala, IDEX

Media Strategies for Human Rights and Social Justice
This workshop will explore some of the groundbreaking work being done by those working to use media to promote social justice–and how funders might support such work. We'll highlight successful examples from around the globe where activists are using media to reach new audiences and create new power paradigms. We'll explore more traditional media like community radio—still the primary means by which rural communities get news and information—as well as newer tools like video and, the newest of all, social media. With Julie Parker Benello, Women's Media Fund; Taida Horozovic, CURE (Bosnia and Herzegovina); and Mavic Cabrera-Balezza, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders

Lunch and Grantmakers Without Borders Annual Meeting
12:00 to 1:30 pm
Grantmakers Without Borders will share updates and highlights of an exciting and dynamic period in the organization's history.

Breakout Workshops
1:45 to 3:30 pm

Supporting Indigenous and Peasant Organizations to Manage their Lands and Resources
Far too many conservation and development investments have not responded to the interests and needs of indigenous people and peasant communities who live in the high biodiversity areas of the world. This workshop will explore participatory approaches to conservation that support grassroots-driven social movements, that fully integrate local perspectives and that nurture local initiatives. We'll explore the many ways funders can encourage these alternative approaches, including dialogues, capacity building, land use mapping, awareness raising and legal assistance. With Mark Downie, author; Juan Alejo Zarzycki, Fundación Yangareko (Bolivia); Noer "Oji" Fauzi, Samdhana Institute; and Donna House, Navaho Nation

Building Strong and Healthy Organizations
When striving to make change, it's all about capacity. This workshop will look at ways funders can amplify their investment in a grantee's effectiveness through capacity building. Specific models for supporting organizational development, lessons learned from the field, and illuminating stories of what has worked and what hasn't will be shared. We'll hear from a foundation whose capacity-building program has received high marks from a range of viewers, and we'll check in with grantees on what capacity building means to them and what their advice to funders interested in capacity building might be. With Emily Goldfarb and Laura Livoti, French American Charitable Trust; Andrea Lee, Mujeres Unidas y Activas; and Jim Schultz, Democracy Center (Bolivia)

LGBTIQ People and Movements
Discrimination, violence, and abuse permeate the lives of many who challenge sexual or gender norms. Gay men are denied work, transgendered people are murdered in public spaces, and lesbians are raped in their homes. This workshop will explore the state of play among organizations and social movements fighting for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people in the global South. Not just aimed at funders with explicit programs in this arena, this workshop will also explore how funders working in a range of other arenas, including workers' rights, civil liberties, economic empowerment and many other issues, can lend a hand to LBGTIQ communities. With Dulce Reyes, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice; Juliana Cano Nieto, Human Rights Watch; Nancy Ordover, Funders for LGBTQ Issues; and Val Kalende, Freedom and Roam Uganda (Uganda)

A Grantmakers Guide to Microfinance
Over the past several years, Grantmakers Without Borders undertook extensive research into the field of microfinance with the goal of writing a guide to grantmaking in this arena. We wanted to understand what this development strategy—highly popular among global donors—was all about, what its track record was, and how funders involved in the sector could be most effective. Come hear what we learned and discuss and debate the strengths and weaknesses of microfinance as a tool for addressing poverty. With John Harvey, Grantmakers Without Borders; Kasia Paprocki, The Goldin Institute; Nathanael Goldberg, Innovations for Poverty Action; and Bob Graham, NamasteDirect

Closing General Session:
At the Crossroads of Social Justice: Navigating a Busy Intersection
4:00 to 5:30 pm
As this conference has demonstrated, grantmakers who strive to advance a broad and comprehensive social justice agenda indeed have a great deal to think about. Gender, ability, race and many other factors must be taken into consideration in order to promote lasting and deep social change. Gw/oB's conference will conclude with an exploration of the theory of "Intersectionality". Through presentations by experts and in small group discussions, we'll explore how we might take what we learned from the conference and use the concept of Intersectionality to strengthen the impact of our grantmaking in the future. With Susan Henderson, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund; Dulce Reyes, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice; David Mattingly, Fund for Global Human Rights; and Brooke Ackerly, Vanderbilt University

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