CULTURE & NARRATIVE

Social Movements Require Stories
Social movements require stories; they are as important in changing ecosystems as organizing, research, and leadership. The question is no longer “should social justice funders invest in media?” but rather, what kinds of stories work for particular desired outcomes, audiences, and strategies? Join us to understand the role of story-based media in an “ecosystem of change” and explore – now that technologies and consuming patterns as well as the roles of artists and media makers have dramatically changed – what healthy collaborations are possible, and what skills and tools can help grantmakers make better informed decisions about what to fund and why.
Lab Leaders(s): Ellen Schneider, Active Voice; Ellen Friedman, Compton Foundation
~ with John Esterle • Bridgit Evans; Cara Mertes; Christie George, New Media Ventures; Taryn Higashi; Adey Fisseha, Unbound Philanthropies; Julie Parker Benello, Chicken & Egg; Robert Bray, Neo; Steve Cohen, Chicago Media Project

Earth Ethics for a Regenerative Economy
A Just Transition from the destructive “growth” economy requires outgrowing the dominant underlying extractive paradigm, based in an illusion of separation from nature. In this Lab we will explore how to strengthen resilience, through worldviews rooted in cultures of respect for life, while sustaining resistance to destruction. What does it take to remember we are part of a living system, subject to natural laws, and to embody a way of being in the world, founded in an Earth ethic, living with reciprocity and respect? We will learn from lived experiences with corn and salmon cultures here on Turtle Island.
Lab Leaders(s): Liz Hosken, Gaia Foundation; Karen Swift, Swift Foundation.
~ with Jim Enote, Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative (Zuni tribe); Anne Docherty & Beth DeMaio (Storytellers Foundation; Gitxsan First Nation) Liz Hosken, Gaia Foundation, Karen Swift (Swift Foundation), Steve Ellis, Tides Canada Foundation

Role of Sacredness and Culture in Deep Social and Ecological Transformation
To promote equity and create a better framework that initiates social and ecological transformation, the philanthropic community must begin shifting its focus towards creating movement within the context of two things: culture and sacredness. While there is broad consensus culture plays a critical role in philanthropy, minimal attention has been paid to sacredness when analyzing interconnectedness and social change movements. The terms culture and sacredness might seem too obscure or esoteric to some, but this lab will explore why these things matter, and how a basic understanding can be applied to grantmaking processes to allow for a first step to initiate systemic change.
Lab Leaders(s): Natasha Hale, Colorado Plateau Foundation, njohnson@coloradoplateaufoundation.org
~ with Sam Tucker, David and Lucille Packard Foundation; China Ching; Christensen Fund;

GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT BUILDING

Equity as a Strategy for Impact in Policy and Funding
Just Transition principles and grassroots leadership are critical to developing meaningful national policy, but funders must build power together, with leadership from movement partners and shared understandings of what “equity,” “justice” and “grassroots” really mean. This lab will look at how those frameworks have practical, measurable implications for policy outcomes and will introduce a new grassroots-led Fund to shift resources to grassroots sector, hashing out details with other funder collaboratives trying to move money to the grassroots.
Lab Leaders(s): Samantha Harvey, Overbrook Foundation, sharvey@overbrook.org
~ with Miya Yoshitani, Jose Bravo, Just Transition Alliance; Antonio Lopez, Little Village, Melissa Lin Perrella, NRDC, Cindy Wiesner, GGJ 

The Essential Role of the Grassroots in System Change
Discuss different definitions of the “grassroots” and examples of the role of the grassroots in system change. Build consensus around an eco-system model of a healthy grassroots culture and explore multiple models of the role of the grassroots in larger scale system change. Make the case that healthy grassroots ecosystems are an essential component of movement building and large scale system change. Explain why and how the grassroots can be a regular and continuing component of all funding strategies and provide an overview of existing grassroots funding infrastructure and ongoing infrastructure gaps.
Lab Leaders(s): Cheryl King Fischer, New England Grassroots Environment Fund, kingfischer@vtlink.net
~ with Benno Friedman, Sarah Stranahan, Terry Odendahl, Hugh Hogan, Julia Dundorf, Leslie Meehan and Lisa Duran

Lessons and Future of Global Movement Building, with case studies of La Via Campesina and the World March of Women
While social movements have made progress building global movements and strengthening their international infrastructure and strategies, philanthropy has been slow to develop appropriate funding strategies to support these developments. We will look at two of the most effective and powerful global movement organizations in the world — La Via Campesina and World March of Women to learn about how they built powerful bases and unity among diverse constituencies, how they link and integrate local work and campaigns to national, regional and global level work, and how they envision further strengthening the global movement in the future.
Lab Leaders(s): Chung-Wha and Sara Mersha, Grassroots International, smersha@grassrootsonline.org
~ with TBD

Digital Organizing: a New Road to Social Change
A growing number of progressive next-generation organizing groups around the world, born in the internet era, are harnessing digital activism to impact fundamental equity and justice issues — from climate change, to trade, to food security, to workers rights in global supply chains. These tools are leveraging hundreds of thousands of people in both online and offline activity, and the digital space is increasingly the infrastructure of movements. But because digital strategies fall outside or cuts across traditional funding buckets, digital organizations and funders often aren’t engaging in each others’ work effectively. Come strategize about how to change that!
Lab Leaders(s): Julie Menter, New Media Ventures, jmenter@newmediaventures.org
~ with Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman and China Brotsky (SumOfUs); TBD (OPEN); TBD, New Israel Foundation

INVESTMENTS & REGENERATIVE FINANCE

Impact Investing and a Just Transition
This session will consider how foundation investment practice can contribute to and be informed by a just transition; explore perils of impact investing and ways it can be grounded in equity and social justice to be a more useful social change tool for funders; create a more nuanced understanding of ways capital can be deployed for mission and a clear sense of the concerns that have emerged; explore how reparations can and must be explored.
Lab Leaders(s): Jennifer Near, The Libra Foundation, jennifer@thelibrafoundation.org
~ with Andrea Armeni- Transform Finance

Explorations In Indigenous Philanthropy, Loans, and Investments
Experience a living example of how a collaborative of different philanthropic institutions with different — but closely related — missions, resources, capacities, and goals works together toward making systemic change by sharing power and the power of dreams (the difficult moments as well as the easy ones); Construct your own map of ‘Relatives;’ Engage in dialogues and ideas being shared by Indigenous leaders, executives and program officers, donors and board members. Safely imagine and strategize about what might happen if power relationships and decision-making roles change in philanthropy.
Lab Leader(s): Jaune Evans, Executive Director, Tamalpais Trust, Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte, Executive Director, The Christensen Fund
~ with Jen Astone, Executive Director, Swift Foundation, Sonja or Karen Swift, Donors and Board Members, Swift Foundation, Dr. Myrna Cunningham, Chair, Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Learning Initiative

Community Control Over Finance and the Means of Production
This conversation will center communities seizing greater control of finance and the means of production to have the political, economic, and cultural power to ‘build the new.’ Initiatives across the country– and the world–bring together finance and worker control so community members make decisions on ways to sustain their livelihood. Under the premise that systemic change requires financing and the means of production be in the hands of community members, we’ll discuss how philanthropy can become more focused on (re)investing investments in communities, and how these investments can be aligned with grant making to build local capacity.
Lab Leader(s): Cuong Hoang, Chorus Foundation, cphoang@mottphilanthropic.com
~ with Brendan Martin, The Working World; Ed Whitfield or Marnie Thompson, Fund for Democratic Communities; Gopal Dayaneni, Movement Generation

ECONOMY & ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

Getting Fiscal
The last few years have seen the emergence of collaborative efforts across the globe to tap the transformative power of human rights to bring about more sufficient, equitable and accountable public resourcing, as an alternative paradigm to the prevailing dogma of austerity.Tax justice and development advocates have long drawn attention to the role that tax evasion and regressive fiscal policies play in fuelling inequality and undermining sustainable development. They are now turning increasingly to human rights to provide a legitimizing language for their demands, as well as new avenues for accountability. Meanwhile, vanguard human rights organizations working in the fields of economic and social rights and gender equality have been deepening their engagement with tax and budget policies, given the critical role these play in realizing rights and reducing inequality. We would like to share and explore with colleagues explore how the principles, instruments and mechanisms of human rights can be deployed in efforts to bolster the resourcing, redistributive and accountability functions of taxation.
Lab Leaders(s): Lesley Carson, Wellspring Advisors, lcarson@wellspringadvisors.com
~ with Ignacio Saiz, Center for Economic and Social Rights; Liz Nelson, Tax Justice Network; Imad Sabi, former Oxfam Novib; Grazielle David, INESC, Brazil

Global Trade Governance Alternatives
The species of capitalism dominating world markets today poses a significant threat to our ability to achieve needed social and ecological transformation in the long term. A critical piece of this puzzle is international trade, which encapsulates the false assumption that perpetual economic growth is a feasible expectation in a physically limited world. We are at a tipping point in the trade wars –massive public resistance has arisen to trade agreements under negotiation. With the evidence and people power on our side, but the corporate and financial weight on the opposing team: how can we build a truly sustainable global movement on trade that will support development of viable alternatives to our current system? Participants will gain a high level understanding of the threat of free trade to their philanthropic goals. We will focus on concrete needs for this movement long term, including the need for an alternative proposal for global trade governance.
Lab Leaders(s): Shorey Myers, Jenifer Altman Foundatio,  smyers@jaf.org
~ with TBD

Lab Leaders(s): Leslie Harroun, Partners for a New Economy
~ with TBD

Growing the Fourth Sector: Accelerating the Transition to a Sustainable, Inclusive, Resilient Economy
Impact investing, social enterprise, sustainable business, corporate social responsibility, microfinance, venture philanthropy, privatization, community development finance and public-private partnerships, challenge assumptions and defy traditional siloed approaches to problem solving. Boundaries separating nonprofit, business, and government sectors are increasingly blurred. Many for-profit companies have broadened their purpose to include social and environmental aims, while many nonprofits and governmental organizations have adopted market-based approaches to advance their goals. Learn about how cross-sector collaboration has been on the rise and a rapidly growing “for-benefit” fourth sector is emerging, leveraging market-based approaches and private capital to solve social and environmental problems.
Lab Leaders(s): Shalini Nataraj, Ing Foundation, shalini.nataraj@ing-foundation.org and Heather Grady, Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors, hgrady@rockpa.org
~ with Radhika Shah, Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs; Heerad Sabeti, Fourth Sector Network

Understanding and Supporting the Commons
The Commons provides a practical, non-ideological way of addressing the failures of the neoliberal economy and the modern bureaucratic state (“the market/state”), and their inability to meet ecological needs and assure social justice. Existing Commons alternatives (collectively managed housing, water systems, farmland, Internet communities, alternative currencies, and participatory governed institutions) show that system change is not utopian. These efforts are mostly under the radar, scattered, and under-resourced, and philanthropic support is needed to strengthen the political and cultural foundations of this new paradigm and to spread practices and social innovations among commoners around the world.
Lab Leaders(s): Nicolas Krausz, Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation
~ with David Bollier, Commons Strategies Group 

The Sustainable Development Goals and the Role of the Business Sector in bringing about Transformational Social Change
This discussion will provide information on SDGs and to exchange ideas on how the philanthropy sector can encourage the business sector to shift its core business practices to help achieve them. Learn about the SDG Philanthropy Platform, an innovative and collaborative partnership to raise awareness within the philanthropy sector about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ways to contribute to their achievement; and to increase understanding by the UN system, governments and civil society of the role and potential of the philanthropy sector to make faster, deeper progress in achieving the SDGs.
Lab Leaders(s): Radhika Shah, Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs, Heather Grady, Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors, Shalini Nataraj, Ing Foundation

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT LAB

Bridging the Divide Between Large Scale Financing and Community-driven Approaches to Coping with Widespread Climate Vulnerabilities
Increasing numbers of national, regional and international financing mechanisms are being established to support climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and programs. Yet many Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities most impacted by climate change find it difficult to access these funds at a time when they are most critical. There is an urgent need to bridge the divide between large scale financing and the community-driven approaches to coping with widespread climate vulnerabilities associated with food, water, land and livelihoods. Together with our partners in the philanthropic community, we seek to create a systemic shift in the way climate financing for adaptation is defined, accessed and distributed so that Indigenous and local knowledge and community needs are better recognized, supported and integrated into regional and national climate planning efforts.
Lab Leaders(s): China Ching, Christensen Fund, china@christensenfund.org and Anne Henshaw, Oak Foundation, Anne.Henshaw@oakfnd.org
~ with Joan Carling, Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact; Sanjay Bavikatte, Christensen Fund

Indigenous Rights Approach to Climate Justice and Just Economies
The biggest obstacles standing in the path of the largest fossil fuel expansion projects are Indigenous Rights. Environmental justice and Indigenous movements have been collaborating more successfully to protect our land, water, and sacred sites. This success relies heavily on the fact that Indigenous communities (across North America) hold unique legal land and resource rights recognized by the highest levels of government. The recent Indigenous Climate Action Summit developed an Indigenous Peoples’ strategy on climate change policy, and laid the foundation for future collaboration through an Indigenous Climate Action Plan. This session will create a deeper understanding on the effectiveness of building power using an Indigenous Rights approach in order to transform the climate justice movement.
Lab Leaders(s): Ginger Hintz, Women Donors Network, ghintz@womendonors.org
~ with Nina Simons, Earth Circle co-chair; Eriel Deranger; Wahleah Jonhs, Black Mesa Water Coalition

Gender and Climate Change: Funding Across Movements for Greater Impact
Globally, women experience some of the most acute impacts of environmental degradation and climate change. At the same time, women are leading initiatives that address the root causes of and develop resilience to the detrimental impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, lack of access to funding limits women’s ability to pursue their climate solutions and exercise their rights. Despite the great need, funding at this intersection of women’s rights and climate change is minimal. This engagement lab will explore how funders can build greater collaboration between the women’s and environmental movements with the goal of a stronger, more unified movement that approaches issues such as climate change and women’s rights more holistically. We seek to develop more effective approaches to address needs on the ground and, in turn, have a greater impact on building deeper, more systemic change. We will not bring grantee partners, but other funding partners
Lab Leaders(s): Emilienne Aulina, International Network of Women’s Funds, inwfexecutive@gmail.com
~ with Ursula Miniszewski, Global Greengrants Fund; Liz Hosken, Gaia Foundation

FOOD & AGRICULTURE LAB

Seeds of Power
The Global Alliance is in the process of identifying strategic funding opportunities at a cross-regional level to strengthen community-based seed systems that are climate resilient and maximize agrobiodiversity. We seek to actively collaborate with funders to strengthen farmer efforts and advance policy advocacy in this area.
Lab Leaders(s): Yael Falicov, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, yael@futureoffood.org
~ with Daniel Moss, AgroEcology Fund and Karolo Aparicio, EcoViva

Climate Resilience and Sustainable Food Production
With international colleagues in attendance, a representative from our Honduras partner in USC Canada’s decades old Seeds of Survival (SoS) program, and a young farmer from our new Canadian program, we hope to:- inspire discussion about innovative biodiversity-based, agro-ecological seed and food production that not only keeps farmers on the land but strengthens social cohesion, women’s leadership, and intergenerational collaboration;- propose field-based strategies for climate resilience that can inform global policy change, as well as regional farming practices- challenge conventional thinking about North to South knowledge and resource flows.
Lab Leaders(s): Susan Walsh, Universalist Service Committee, swalsh@usc-canada.org
~ Marvin Gomez, Foundation for Participatory Research with Honduran Farmers; Rachelle Ternier, Saskatchewan seed producer and farmer

Farmworkers Organizing at the Intersections of Food Sovereignty and Justice
The transition towards an equitable food system requires that we recognize and facilitate the leadership of groups accountable to the two to three million farmworkers in the US. The majority of farmworkers are young, undocumented men of color, many of whom have settled with families in urban and peri-urban communities. Even though their labor is critical to our daily lives, they are still largely invisible and vulnerable, suffering high rates of food insecurity, pesticide exposure, wage theft, and stress. In recent years, farmworker organizations and unions have leveraged visibility, asserted power and won change by creatively linking their struggles to new, and often unlikely, allies. Strategies include reformist campaigns, building community-controlled institutions, and creating alternative markets. This Lab conversation will explore ways to build support for farmworkers’ efforts to advance long term strategies to build power for systemic change.
Lab Leaders(s): Kolu Zigbi, Noyes Foundation, kolu@igc.org
~ with Judy Hatcher, Pesticide Action Network

DONOR ORGANIZING & PHILANTHROPIC PRACTICE

Funding Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Support
This Lab will explore different funding models and the reasons why direct giving to Indigenous communities is the most cost effective way to reach program goals. It will offer practical tips to overcome the most common obstacles to supporting Indigenous peoples. It will feature first-hand accounts from both grantees and donors on how to structure and administer projects with Indigenous communities to meet both parties’ objectives. It will explore why ancestral knowledge is the key to the Earth’s future.
Lab Leaders(s): Evelyn Arce, International Funders of Indigenous Peoples, evelyn@internationalfunders.org
~ with Froyla Tzalam, Sarstoon Temash Institute of Indigenous Management in Belize, Jen Astone/Sonja Swift, Swift Foundation; Katrin Wilde, Channel Foundation; Peter Kostishack, Global Greengrants Fund

Community-based grantmaking: Transforming the Power Dynamics in Philanthropy
There are a growing number of organizations and projects working to build new methods of grantmaking that give decision making authority for grant funds to community members or to the grant recipients directly. These methods of grantmaking leverage community wisdom while building collaboration, trust and mutual accountability among grantees and funders. RSF Social Finance has been experimenting with one method of community based grantmaking called Shared Gifting for five years now. Based on our experience working with this model, we would like to explore some of the highlights and challenges of working with this and other collaborative models of grantmaking. We would also like to lead a discussion around unpacking some of the assumptions that exist in our traditional philanthropic paradigm, specifically the assumption that those with wealth know best how to use it. We invite organizations that have moved beyond notions of traditional philanthropy and instead are aiming to build new models that share or give decision making authority over to those working on the ground in communities to join us in the conversation.
Lab Leaders(s): Kelley Buhles, RSF Social Finance, kelley.buhles@rsfsocialfinance.org
~ with Jaune Evans, Tamalpais Trust & Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Learning, Arianna Shaffer, Indie Philanthropy

We are Turning in Our Begging Bowls: Creating a New Social Impact System
This lab will address inequality in the nonprofit / philanthropic sector be defining the building blocks for creating new social impact ecosystem. Traditionally, the sector is viewed in a linear form – from grantor to grantee to recipient. This new ecosystem will expose the challenges and limitations of this linear process, and introduce a more robust, accessible and equal system that moves us away from the “begging”, top-down structure that currently permeates the philanthropic sector.
Lab Leaders(s): Stephanie Heckman, One World Children’s Fund, steph.heckman@owcf.org
~ with Melanie Bielefeld, Chilu Lungu, Abhay Tewari, Evelyn Nassuna

Courageous Philanthropy: Funding Challenging Issues
Supporting systemic change often requires funding issues that are considered risky, political, or unpopular. To foster positive transformation around the globe, funders must address the root causes of complex issues with innovation, collaboration and courage. This lab offers funding approaches for an increasingly interconnected yet challenging world, from strengthening political will for change to relying on local communities to guide initiatives. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund will be joined by its grantee Just Vision, an organization that increases the power of Palestinians and Israelis working to end the occupation and build a future of freedom, dignity and equality in the region.
Lab Leaders(s): Ariadne Papagapitos, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, apapagapitos@rbf.org
~ with Suhad Babaa, Just Vision, Deirdre Hegarty

Funders as Fierce Allies for a Just Transition: Exploring Power and Inequity in Progressive Philanthropic Alliances
Examining power and inequity can be a daunting, risky, messy, and decidedly non-linear outside-in process. We often start by analyzing power dynamics and structural oppression out there and quickly find that it’s in here as well. History shows that grassroots-powered social movements are the most effective means for dismantling inequitable systems and erecting new socially just ones. Yet, philanthropy often stops short of effectively utilizing its resources and privilege to transform the very power dynamics that perpetuate the systems it purports to change. In this dynamic engagement lab, we’ll explore the questions: What personal and collective shifts are needed among funders to catalyze their power and privilege into sustainable and effective allyship for grassroots-led social movements seeking to transform systems perpetuating injustice, poverty and environmental instability?
Lab Leaders(s): Alison Cohen, Why Hunger, alison@whyhunger.org
~ with Gerardo Marin, Rooted In Community, Malik Yakini, Detroit Black Community Food Security, Nikki Henderson, formerly with People’s Grocery, Kolu Zigby, Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation

Reimagining Funding with the Indie Philanthropy Initiative
The Indie Philanthropy Initiative is a creative disruption to the status quo of funding. Our Engagement Lab will be a space to explore funding practices that are often overlooked in mainstream philanthropic avenues. Indie Philanthropy is about looking closely not just at what gets funded, but also who makes decisions and how funding is done. This Lab will be about breaking open the space for funders, organizations, and the philanthropic culture at large to have their values and funding match up. Lab Leaders(s): Arianne Shaffer, Indie Philanthropy, arianne@indiephilanthropy.org
~ with Alissa Hauser, The Pollination Project, Lisa Duran, Grassroots Grantmakers, Kelley Buhles RSF Social Finance

The End of Philanthropy? Creating Alternative Revenue for Organizing and Advocacy
This engagement lab will address the question of the limitations of philanthropy and how we can use philanthropy to create alternative revenue streams for organizing. The Worker’s Lab has been pioneering this, investing in non-profits in ways that build out their revenue model, making them ultimately less dependent on philanthropy. We want to explore how we can ramp up this work and use philanthropic resources to ultimately diminish the dependence on philanthropy.
Lab Leaders(s): Leah Hunt-Hendrix, Solidaire, LeahGraceHH@gmail.com
~ with Carmen Rojas, The Workers Lab