From grassroots to global movement! 

All over the world - from Brazil to Russia, from China to the Congo and from Palestine to South Africa - community philanthropy has emerged as an essential tool for strengthening communities' voice and power.

Join us in Johannesburg to celebrate the dynamism and potential of this flourishing movement at the Global Summit on Community Philanthropy, 1st - 2nd December 2016!

Call for ideas

What are the burning issues or essential tools that you would like to discuss at the Summit? Ideas for inspiring speakers? Creative ways to present your work? Send us your ideas!

Read more

Earlier this year the Global Fund for Community Foundations and the Global Alliance for Community Philanthropy announced a landmark event in the field of Philanthropy - the Global Summit on Community Philanthropy, to be held on 1 - 2 December 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This post first appaered on the Global Fund for Community Foundations blog on November 13, 2015

In September 2013, the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace and the Global Fund for Community Foundations convened a small group of grassroots indigenous foundations in Shillong in the North East of India. The convening was hosted by the Foundation for Social Transformation – Enabling North East India and included foundations from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia.

The convening aimed to provide a platform to these foundations to learn from one another to strengthen their organisational capacities, and to work as a group to develop community philanthropy for progressive social change in Asia.

The attached report summarizes the key characteristics of these foundations as emerging from group work during the convening. Its purpose is to set out the emerging themes form the conversation in Shillong and explore ways in which the practice of philanthropy for social justice and peace in the region can be deepened and broadened.

Nepal is reeling from the immediate effects of the earthquake that hit the country on 25th April 2015. As the immediate emergency response gets underway and in the reconstruction that follows, it will be crucial for local needs and voices to be taken into consideration and that grassroots groups are part of efforts to rebuild, strengthen, and expand sustainable development in Nepal's rural areas.

‘A Life Lived on the Edge: An Account of the First Ten Years of the Foundation of Social Transformation’ is a new resource produced the Global Fund for Community Foundations. It tells the story of a community foundation in the North-east of India, of the conditions that necessitated its birth, its vision, its struggles, how it came to almost close doors and its slow recovery and renewed direction.

The world is at a point and time in its evolution, when a shift – and a very rapid one at that – is inevitable.  In fact it is already happening.  To take a broad sweep – rapid environmental degradation, hazards, and disasters; increasing conflicts; weakening - or in countries like mine, failing States; and widening disproportionate economic gaps between people, are only a few of the markers.  Like never before, with the help of technology and communications we are more connected as people.  Despite colour, taste, size, location, interests, we are increasingly realizing that as humans we are basically the same.   Essentially we are not happy when we do something wrong e.g.

 US peacebuilding theorist John Paul Lederach talks about achieving “critical yeast” in difficult circumstances, with this arguably being of greater importance than “critical mass.” If the recently circulated report on philanthropy for social justice and peace in Latin America and the Caribbean is to be believed that is exactly what exists: critical yeast. The 32 foundations located and working in the region that participated in this study are mainly public or community foundations.