So did the Council on Foundations’ grandly named Summit live up to its ambitions? With over 3,000 people attending, the Summit, it certainly succeeded in bringing in the numbers. But it succeeded in much more than that.
Six philanthropic leaders from outside the US speaking in the ‘opening ceremony’ signalled that philanthropy is now a global affair, while perhaps the best conference plenary I’ve ever attended signalled that human rights is an issue for the US as much as for the rest of the world. The ‘electronic town hall plenary’ run by AmericaSpeaks with ‘polling keypads’ and roundtable discussions proved an interesting experience, while the much-touted mini-summits seem to have offered high-quality content.
Did the US delegates, 90 per cent of the total, feel there was too much international content in what is after all US foundations’ national conference? As far as I could tell, they didn’t. The strategy of including speakers from outside the US to bring different perspectives to a wide range of topics rather than having ‘international’ panels seems to have worked well. As for the community foundation and family foundation delegates all coming to one big conference, I detected some regret for more specifically relevant breakout sessions, but as it was a one-off event I don’t think there were many complaints.
The least successful thing about the conference was undoubtedly the venue: the newly built, inhumanly proportioned and over-airconditioned Convention Center at National Harbor, outside Washington DC. Expressions like ‘caged bird’ and ‘prisoner’ were to be heard. The fact that 3,000 people shivered for four days in a brand-new building despite the warm weather outside says a lot about how we are failing to take the challenges of global warming seriously.
Caroline Hartnell is Editor of Alliance magazine.
