Workshops - 2017
Workshops are for sharing, to exchange and deepen knowledge especially around content (projects, initiatives, networks, perspectives).
WORKSHOP 1
“Take away our drums, and we will clap our hands”
Countering restrictions on foreign funding and backlash against activism from the grassroots up
Workshop organisers:
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Fiona Montagud - Calala Fondo de Mujeres
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Sharan Srinivas - Right Livelihood Award Foundation
Wednesday, 26 April
This session explores strategies for mitigating and challenging the criminalization of peaceful activism and the increased application of restrictions on funding to civil society in a manner that is often disproportionately and illegitimately applied to grassroots organizations.
Our aim is to bring a new perspective and to highlight the everyday experiences and expertise of communities on the margins of society, who are often most targeted by backlash, restriction, and defamation. It will bring together the perspectives of both funders and activists; while they work on diverse issues, they share common challenges.
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Speakers:
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Caitlin Stanton (Urgent Action Fund, United States) will moderate the conversation. UAF has a 20 years of providing small, flexible, extremely rapid security support grants for activists who under threat because of their work.
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Sharan Srinivas (The Right Livelihood Award Foundation, Sweden) will share learnings from the experience of the Foundation in working with their recipients, who now encounter foreign funding restrictions and have witnessed the harassment and detention of activists.
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Fiona Montagud (Calala Women’s Fund, Spain) will share learnings from their research on backlash against reproductive justice activists from anti-choice groups active in Spain and the strategies they have considered, as a funder, in response.
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Laia Serra (Barcelona, Spain), a lawyer and activist from the LGBT and feminist movement will speak about her work providing legal aid and legal strategies to activists.
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Miguel Enrique Stédile (Brazil) a member of the national board of the Landless Workers’ Movement- MST-Brazil will share concrete experience dealing with backlash and how MST has sought to navigate and respond to the situation as well as considerations for funders.
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Marusia López Cruz (Mexico) from JASS and the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders will bring the feminist perspective to the protection of WHRD.
WORKSHOP 2
Finance, Business and Power Oh My! - What 35 Project Phoenix Funders Learned About What it Takes to Seed a New Economy
Workshop organiser:
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Aditi Vaidya - Solidago Foundation and See Forward Fund
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Jose Garcia - Ford Foundation
Wednesday, 26 April
Project Phoenix, a program of the Neighborhood Funders Group, was a funder learning cohort of 35+ funders and field practitioners who were engaged in a time-bound program of study, learning site visits and debate on what it means to advance a just transition to a new economy. The cohort proposed and iterated a set of assertions on the best roles for government, the private sector and finance as underpinnings for exploration with a particular emphasis on the best ways to build community-led political power and ensure that capital markets were aligned to enable the conditions for a new just economy.
The distinct purpose was to look at the range of local experiments and distill concrete practical applications to implement grant making, investment, power building and political tools toward this goal.
As part of the process, we collaborated with Center for Story-based Strategy to identify elements of narrative and language to consider in maximizing the resources we wield. In this session the co-designers of Project Phoenix, along with key participants, will share the development, content, process and outcomes of our 12 months of learning. With video clips of learnings and interactive exercises to help you see what it felt like to go on this 12-month journey, join us as we explore a just transition to new economy through the eyes of Project Phoenix!
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Collaborators:
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Anna Quinn - NoVo Foundation
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Ed Whitfield - Fund for Democratic Communities
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Sarah Christiansen - Solidago Foundation and See Forward Fund
WORKSHOP 3
Harnessing a carnival of resistance: Emerging media and corporate accountability strategies in the time of Trump, Le Pen, Brexit, and beyond
Wednesday, 26 April
Come here to discuss what philanthropists and their NGO partners can do to resist the further ascent of nationalism, separatism, xenophobia, and corporate power...and help catalyze this resistance into the sustained transformation of media, markets, and government.
We'll discuss how to more effectively hack the media echo chamber, the People's Treaty to protect human rights from corporate abuse, and other strategies on your mind.
Workshop organisers:
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Elizabeth McKeon - IKEA Foundation
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Tracy Gary - Unleashing Generosiy/ Triskeles Foundation
WORKSHOP 4
Outsmarting the Hydra: From battles against individual trade deals towards a fair and green trade policy system
Workshop organisers:
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Juliette Decoster - FPH
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Sabine Frank - Schöpflin Stiftung
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Karin Van Boxtel and Maaike Schouten - Both ENDS
Wednesday, 26 April
Purpose of the Workshop:
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• Inform participants on key insights into future developments and options in trade, and stimulate reflections among participants
• Exploration of different strategies to fair and green approaches towards trade
Context
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After years in which TTIP, TPP and CETA were in the spotlight, we have entered a post transatlantic trade deal period. The CETA deal is being finalised, TPP ratification by the US is off the agenda, and the TTIP negotiations are likely to be formally halted. Opposition to corporate trade deals amongst civil society organisations, citizens, local authorities and SMEs has been extraordinarily high. However, the EU is pursuing a host of further trade and investment deals without civil society mounting the same kind of protest. These are likely to have less detrimental impact on the EU, yet enormous effects on Southern countries.
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The challenge of changing trade policy systemically towards sustainable societies is then greater than ever. What we have learnt from opposing individual trade deals could be translated into the principles and rules that should apply to trade globally. Alternatives to the current trade regime are being envisioned and discussed by many organisations, movements and local authorities.
What is at stake in this post transatlantic period? What is expected to happen in the coming years? How do we shift to a system where trade is part of social and ecological transition? What are the different alternatives under discussion? Progressive funders, organisations and movements will discuss these and other questions during this workshop.
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Speakers:
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Burghard Ilge - Both ENDS
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Alexandra Strickner - ATTAC Austria
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Jane Nalunga - SEATINI
WORKSHOP 5
100% Agroecology, Land & Food Sovereignty:
Beyond the Technical Fixes
Workshop organisers:
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Daniel Moss - AgroEcology Fund
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Kolu Zigbi - The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation
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Inga Wachsmann - European Foundations for Sustainable Agriculture (EFSAF)
Wednesday, 26 April
Agroecology is powerful. And in fashion. Social movements, with the support of philanthropy and in alliance with a broad range of actors, seek to create new food systems with agroecology at their center. Agroecology is understood not as a simple set of technical practices, but fundamental to agrarian reform and food sovereignty.
We will look at how philanthropy has and can play a vital role in supporting social movements to challenge the power of the industrial food system, offer authentic solutions to climate change and put small scale food producers center-stage again.
The aim of the session is to further collaboration between philanthropy and civil society organizations to co-create sustainable food systems rooted in social justice.
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Speakers:
Moderator: Henk Hobbelink, GRAIN
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Elizabeth Mpofu - La Via Campesina
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Rosalinda Guillen - Community 2 Community
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Inga Wachsmann - Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer - FPH
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Funders: European Funders for Sustainable Agriculture and Food (EFSAF), AgroEcology Fund, Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer (FPH), Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation, TheGlobal Alliance for the Future of Food
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Civil Society Organizations: GRAIN, La Via Campesina, ETC Group, and Food First
WORKSHOP 6
Who speaks, who listens? Trusting relationships for systems change
Thursday, 27 April
Workshop organisers:
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Arianne Shaffer - Kindle Project
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Rose Longhurst - Edge Fund UK
The saying goes that ‘The Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house’. To achieve the systemic change that people and the planet need, we have to completely rethink the way that we do things. Yet although progressive philanthropy acknowledges the need for transformed systems, we often end up using the same hierarchical, top-down or transactional approaches that have created the problems we want to challenge.
This workshop looks as the ways in which we can consider a funding process that better aligns with our values and vision for society. Expect an interactive session where participants will connect with each other via storytelling, before experiencing the approaches of two very different funders trying to find ways of making sure that everyone’s voices are heard.
WORKSHOP 7
Building a Global Alliance to Challenge the Power of the Plastics Industry
Workshop organisers:
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Nicky Davies - Plastic Pooled Fund
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Stephen Campbell - Oak Foundation
Thursday, 27 April
The issue of plastic pollution is so much more than an oceans issue. While there is no doubt that plastic is having a terrible impact on the ocean, the plastic comes from, and solutions depend upon, changes in the way plastic is used and managed on land.
This in turn is inextricably linked with environmental health and justice issues, from extraction of the original fossil fuels right through to disposal.
In 2016 an unusual gathering of organizations from the global south and north working on issues from oil extraction to marine pollution to zero waste came together in the Philippines to develop a global strategy to confront the power of the international plastics industry, This is their story.
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Speakers:
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Steve Campbell - Oak Foundation
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Dharmesh Shah - GAIA
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Joan Marc Simon - Zero Waste Europe
WORKSHOP 8
Centering Workers in a Just Transition
Thursday, 27 April
Workshop organisers:
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Laine Romero-Alston - Ford Foundation
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Anna Fink - Amalgamated Bank
What happens to workers in a shifting economy and ecosystem? How do the goals of a just transition align with the stark realities facing many workers – including shifts toward more contingent and unstable jobs, automation and regional economic shifts? These dynamics pose a set of challenges for economic security and shared prosperity, something vulnerable populations, and indeed the majority of the global workforce, have been grappling with for decades. At the same time, the potential disruption and reorganization of work poses new opportunities and questions around the nature of work, and even the assertion that work should be the undergirding principle for economic stability.
This workshop will explore and share insights on strategies to build power for workers in the global economy, and will spend time on the role philanthropic capital can play in supporting a spectrum of strategies. From supporting grassroots movement building, to investing in high road businesses, to influencing investment capital flows in the global supply chain, this will be a lively discussion of a multi-faceted strategy to shift power in the global economy toward the arc of a just transition.
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Moderator:
Anna Fink - Amalgamated Bank
Speakers:
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Carmen Rojas - The Workers Lab
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Shawna Bader-Blau - Solidarity Center
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Bahaa Ezzelarab - Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
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WORKSHOP 9
Countering Rising Right Wing Populism by Building Independent Grassroots Political Power
Thursday, 27 April
Workshop organizers:
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Sarah Christiansen - Solidago Foundation
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Anna Striethorst - OSF Roma Initiatives Office
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Chung-Wha Hong - Grassroots International
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Donal Mac Fhearraigh - Open Society Initiative for Europe
That we face a deep systemic crisis is evidenced by rising poverty and inequalities, growing distrust in politics and in the democratic system, and the alarming and global rise of right-wing, racialized populist movements.
Disaffection and political alienation fuel votes for xenophobic parties, while decreasing the ability of vulnerable communities to hold policymakers accountable. This discussion will analyze differences and similarities in the rise of right-wing populism across regions, and explore responses ranging from contesting for political power in and in outside of electoral processes, building social movements to defend gains and move forward on climate, workers rights and democracy, to organizing within historically marginalized communities to create new balances of power to promote structural policy changes in their interest.
Join us to explore how progressive organizing is responding to xenophobic populism’s growing threats, and how the funding community can help better connect local solutions to global movements.
We will hear brief presentations from Tarso Luis Ramos, Political Research Associates (US); Jean-Marie Fardeau, Vox Public (France); Anna Mirga, RomArchive (Poland) and Manish Jain, Shikshantar People’s Institute on Rethinking Education and Development (India).
WORKSHOP 10
Cross-movement Building: Women's Rights and Environmental Justice
Workshop organizers:
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Erika Sales - Mama Cash
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Eva Rehse - Global Greengrants Fund
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Emilienne de León - Prospera - the International Network of Women's Funds
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Maria Amalia Souza - CASA Socio-Environmental Fund
Thursday, 27 April
The session will explore what is emerging from the cross-movement building efforts in the women’s rights and environmental justice fields. What are ways to support integration of women’s rights and environmental justice?
How do we ensure that funding support is driven by and responds to the needs, strategies and priorities of groups working at the intersection of these movements? What has worked and what have been the challenges encountered?
What does this approach mean to funders? Together we will share practical lessons, tips and tools about cross-movement building.
WORKSHOP 11
Philanthropic Endowments and a Just Transition: Mobilizing Resources to Worker and Community Ownership
Workshop organizer:
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Ed Whitfield- Fund for Democratic Communities
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Jennifer Near,- Shake the Foundations
Thursday, 27 April
Beyond divestment, how do we effectively invest in a Just Transition and build the new economy in ways that increase economic and political power for workers and communities? Who owns the money and how capital gets applied to labor toward that purpose is a critical component to building power for a Just Transition, therefore we need coordinated strategies across these different needs to truly share and build power that is rooted in communities. And yet, it is challenging to align philanthropic and investment capital, and other resources,with the need to shift to worker and community-ownership. It is also the case that many communities across the globe hold the vision, governance, and relationships that are needed to put capital to productive use within their local context and in many different ways outside of the dominant U.S. perspective on how to build the new economy.
This workshop will offer a conversation and examples as a humble point of departure to explore experiments that are attempting to return capital into the commons, such as The National Financial Cooperative of nonextractive community loan funds and the Buen Vivir Fund, as well as an opportunity to explore integrated philanthropic strategies to share and shift control over resources and capital and regenerate, rather than extract,wealth in communities. We will also open the conversation to the larger group to learn about other similar experiments in other places.
Here are some key questions that we plan to explore as part of our discussion:
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How do we effectively invest into a Just Transition and regenerative economies in ways that increases the economic and political power of workers and communities?
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What are some specific examples of this work that is happening right now locally and globally and what are the opportunities for philanthropy to support this work?
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What are some examples of new initiatives employing integrated and innovative philanthropic and financing tools?
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What is philanthropy’s role in the transition to community control and ownership over means of production and capital?
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Speakers:
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Ed Whitfield- Fund for Democratic Communities
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Brendan Martin- The Working World
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Sergio Oceransky- YANSA
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Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan - Movement Generation
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Jennifer Near- Shake the Foundations
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Other potential participants with relevant experience: Representatives from Shake the Foundations, Fund for Democratic Communities, Buen Vivir, Chorus and Libra Foundation, partners from CJA, GGJ, MG.