Reports from Alliance magazine

The Philanthropy UK Newsletter is grateful to Alliance magazine for its permission to reproduce the following summaries of its event reports. The full reports can be accessed at www.alliancemagazine.org.

Association of Charitable Foundations conference 2008

by Lenka Setkova

26-27 June 2008, Nottingham, UK

Thorny Questions, Fruitful Answers: Foundations meeting contemporary challenges was the title of the Association of Charitable Foundations’ 2008 conference held in Nottingham 26-27 June. Two hundred representatives of UK trusts and foundations assembled to explore how independent funders might engage with contemporary challenges such as climate change, equality and human rights.

Keynote speaker Malcolm McIntosh of the Applied Research Centre in Human Security highlighted the importance of enabling learning across society about the science of climate change and the global ecosystem, and the necessity for adaptation. He spoke of the need to bring people together from diverse professional backgrounds to exchange ideas and knowledge. Other sessions explored how foundations can ‘green their own behaviour’; the links between climate change, migration and poverty; and the challenge of bridging the social justice and climate change agendas. Foundation support for environmental or conservation work is relatively low among UK foundations, but the attention the topic attracted here suggests that foundations are beginning to consider how they can adapt their focus on non-environmental causes, especially since climate change is likely to disproportionately affect the poorest in society.

The popularity of the sessions run by Phil Buchanan of the US-based Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) suggests that foundations are also seriously grappling with the challenge of measuring the impact they have. As a result, it is likely that ACF will explore how its members could benefit from CEP’s experience.

The location of the event and the references to Robin Hood reminded me of the book Robin Hood was Right by Collins, Rogers and Garner (not inappropriately, since Nottingham featured importantly in the legendary English outlaw’s career), which questions the results of traditional philanthropy, urging funders to tackle the root causes of poverty and other injustices. While there is certainly room for improvement, examples of the work of foundations highlighted at the conference, such as support for the Living Wage Campaign, illustrate how a number of foundations are taking on this challenge.

Lenka Setkova is Director of the Democracy and Civil Society Programme at the Carnegie UK Trust: lenka@carnegieuk.org.

European Foundation Centre AGA and conference 2008

by Caroline Hartnell

29-31 May 2008, Istanbul, Turkey

The subject of this year’s European Foundation Centre Annual General Assembly and Conference, held in Istanbul 29-31 May, was Fostering Creativity. The topic drew the largest ever attendance for the event – over 630 participants from 56 countries. As with other conferences featured in the September issue of Alliance, climate change emerged as perhaps the global issue to be tackled, and one against which foundation efforts can be measured, and mostly found wanting.

But how useful are foundations, full stop? Failing to show sufficient vision, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship was one of the charges made against foundations in a mock trial that was one of the highlights of the conference. The ‘jury’ found foundations to be not guilty on this count – though they were found guilty of failing to live up to their full potential in terms of competently tackling the global challenges threatening humanity.

One of these challenges is, of course, climate change. One bold move made recently is the creation of the European Climate Foundation by six donors, including the Hewlett and Oak Foundations. Mission-connected investing (MCI) could also help, as Doug Bauer (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors) pointed out, urging foundations to at least dip a toe in. Another major challenge is over-consumption, as explained by Annie Leonard (Funders’ Wordgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption), who talked about “slowing the treadmill of consumption” and showed how the entire political and economic system is geared to keeping consumption levels high.

Finally, Wilhelm Krull (VolkswagenStiftung), handing over as EFC Chair to Dr Rui Vilar (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian), selected climate change, migration, poverty, global health, social entrepreneurship and innovation as some of the issues needing attention. He also mentioned strengthening relations with the EU, promoting the European foundation statute, strengthening relations with foundations in other continents, and fostering a new generation of leaders in philanthropy – a list which will tax the creativity of foundations even to make a dent in.

Caroline Hartnell is Editor of Alliance magazine.

Grantmakers Without Borders conference 2008

by Rob Buchanan

8-10 June 2008, San Francisco, USA

Its title of Just Giving: Global Social Change Philanthropy notwithstanding, climate change dominated Grantmakers Without Borders’ 8th annual conference held 8-10 June in San Francisco. All three of the plenary sessions were devoted to the topic and the messages were sobering. Time is getting short, and while technical solutions exist, Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity argued, the political will to implement them does not.

In keeping with Gw/oB’s commitment to ensuring that the voices of those most affected by global issues are heard, speakers from Fiji’s and Alaska’s indigenous communities spoke about the impact of global warming on their traditional homelands and livelihoods, while several breakout workshops examined the critical role of women and of indigenous peoples in addressing the issue. Other workshops and roundtables addressed issues like food security, water rights, natural resource conservation, alternative energy sources and human rights. Models for grassroots action and promoting greater collaboration among funders were also highlighted. Grassroots activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America shared inspiring stories about their work on a variety of social and economic justice issues. Their accomplishments, often under the most difficult of circumstances, brought to life in a powerful way the extraordinary social justice work that is taking place in disadvantaged communities around the world, often supported by small grants.

But sounding the alarm and offering inspiration are not enough. What can social justice funders actually do to make a difference when confronted with such a massive global problem as climate change? Some useful examples were put forward – funding research on the effects of climate change on vulnerable populations, supporting local action to mitigate the consequences of global warming and policy advocacy at multiple levels. Such efforts, however, are likely to fall woefully short in the absence of a more aggressive framework for inter-governmental cooperation, business engagement and citizen mobilisation.

Rob Buchanan is Managing Director, International Programs, at the Council on Foundations: buchr@cof.org.