Annual Conference 2018 – Come to the EDGE

From 17-20 April | New Orleans | US

On the edge you can see all kind of things you can’t see from the center.

 

Members of EDGE Funders Alliance  approach the world through wide lenses, expanding the outer edges of what’s possible. We work across multiple geographies, identities and areas of interest, employing a broad array of strategies within distinct institutional cultures. A kaleidoscope of movement and philanthropic actors, our collective diversity is our greatest strength.

Our community also dives deep, searching for underlying, structural causes of exploitation, inequality and injustice. Not satisfied with the transactional and palliative, we strive towards the edge of the transformational, to move resources that improve people’s daily lives and help heal the planet concretely, while addressing root causes to transform economy and society over the long term.

Our gathering in New Orleans advanced efforts to deepen understanding and move us and our community from sincere but insufficient approaches at the center, towards the edges of what is possible and necessary. Together we explored economic, cultural, political, and ecological contours of systemic crisis, learn and draw inspiration from worldwide struggles for people and planet, and work collectively to advance our role as funders, organizers and philanthropic activists, moving ourselves and moving our field.

Click here to access the full report of the 2018 Annual Conference, and here for the program.

Thanks for joining us!

Conference in Numbers

  • Participants and Sessions

    This year, the EDGE Conference had 217 participants, coming from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. In total, 54 sessions took place during the three days and a half. From that, 7 dine arounds, 14 engagement labs and 12 workshops were proposed and organized by participants.

  • CO2 Emissions

    EDGE, like every other actor, is part of the problem as much as part of the solution.

    Climate gas emissions through air travel to the conference were 632 tons of CO2

Survey results

“Because its a space for innovation and new ways of thinking. Everyone is open for new ideas and is ready to talk to you about them” conference participant

The EDGE Conference 2018 is co-chaired by Amanda Gigler, from Mama Cash, and Leslie Lowe (In Memoriam), from Rockefeller Family Fund

To organise the event, a team of funders and partners integrate the Conference Planning Committee [CPC].

Co-Chairs

Amanda Gigler is the Director of Philanthropic Partnerships and Communications of Mama Cash.
She has been mobilizing resources with women’s funds since 2002 in Latin America, the US and Europe. She holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Barcelona Institute for International Studies, as well as a BA in Comparative Literature and Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
As coordinator of the resource development programme at the Mexican women’s fund, Semillas, Amanda collaborated on the creation of a fundraising training program for small women’s organizations in Mexico. She also worked with the Central American Women’s Fund in the US and Nicaragua to raise awareness and funds to strengthen the region’s feminist and women’s movements.
In 2009 Amanda co-founded Calala Women’s Fund in Barcelona and served as the fund’s first Executive Director, building a feminist donors network and developing a grantmaking programme to support migrant women’s organisations in Spain.

It is with great sadness that we share news of the passing of Leslie Lowe. She was the Program Officer for Institutional Accountability & Individual Liberty of Rockefeller Family Fund.
Leslie was an attorney whose work focused on corporate and governmental accountability as well as environmental law and policy. She became more actively engaged in EDGE following her participation in a 2016 Just Transition Funder Retreat, and we were thrilled and inspired this summer when she agreed to serve as Co-Chair of our Annual Conference. In addition to her expertise and passion, we looked to Leslie to share with us her deep knowledge and links to foundations and activists in New Orleans, and to provide us with an understanding of local and regional contexts and sense of place.

 

 

Conference Planning Committee

  • Jackie Burton | Ford Foundation
  • Ryan Canney | Wellspring Advisors
  • Daniela Castagno | Fondazione Con il Sud
  • Sarah Pugh | Bertha Foundation
  • Flozell Daniels, Jr. | Foundation for Louisiana
  • Tanya Dawkins | CarEth Foundation
  • Emilienne de León Aulina | Prospera
  • Jessica Garz | Surdna Foundation
  • Daniëlle Hirsch | Both Ends
  • Maria Amália Souza | CASA SocioEnvironmental Fund
  • Dilhani Wijeyesekera | Comic Relief
  • Pablo Solόn | Solón Foundation
  • Edouard Morena | University of London

Arianne Shaffer – Arianne is the director of Indie Philanthropy Initiative and facilitator of the EDGE’s six-month co-learning Global Engagement Lab (GEL). She also works as the Communications Director at Kindle Project, where she got her start in the field in 2009.

Atila Roque – Atila Roque heads Ford Foundation’s Rio de Janeiro office, overseeing all grant making in Brazil. Prior to joining Ford, he served as executive director of Amnesty International Brazil, leading the implementation of a comprehensive national human rights strategy.

Marnie Thompson – Marnie is co-Managing Director of the Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC), where she focuses on capacity-building for social justice activists and organizations and building a new kind of economy based in principles of cooperation, democracy, justice, and sustainability.

Pablo Solón – Pablo Solón Romero is the director of Fundación Solón. He served as Ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations from February 2009 to July 2011. He served as the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, an activist think tank based in Bangkok from 2012 to 2015.

Zohra Moosa – Zohra is Mama Cash’s Executive Director since July 2017. Previously, she served as Director of Programmes from May 2013. Zohra came to Mama Cash from Action Aid (UK), where she was their Women’s Rights Advisor for three and a half years.

Regan Pritzker – Regan has a background in education and now works at her family office, Tao Capital Partners, where she is helping to move capital in increasingly integrated ways in service of building a more just and equitable world. She serves as President and chair of the investment committee at the Libra Foundation, her family foundation.