A global conversation about the power and the state of community philanthropy: GFCF partners meet in South Africa

What does the global community philanthropy field look like from different vantage points around the world? And how can this emerging field, which is potentially powerful but not always well understood, become better positioned as a central feature of effective development?

At the end of November 2012, we invited a group of partners from across our global constituency to reflect on this question at a two-day meeting held at a beautiful spot in the Dinokeng region, just outside Johannesburg. The group came from all over – Costa Rica, Egypt, Kenya, United States / Ecuador, Romania, Russia, Vietnam, Jordan, the U.K. and South Africa – and comprised a mixture of current and past GFCF grantees from our Asia, Youth and Environment programmes as well as other “fellow travellers” involved in different ways in building the field of community philanthropy and asset based approaches to development.

Over the course of two day – and against a backdrop of weaver birds busily weaving their nests on among the reeds outside – we discussed the current state of the community philanthropy field worldwide and how its profile, practice and collective voice might be strengthened. One theme that ran throughout the two days was that of how to move from individual struggles in different corners of the world to a more collective, sector-wide approach to field-building. Despite the different country contexts in which people were working, there was a general consensus that emerged around some key issues:

• The global community philanthropy field is a vibrant and innovative space which is seeing rapid growth. It is highly networked and global in its reach, made up of individual institutions deeply committed to strengthening local communities from the bottom up and led by people who share a true conviction and passion. Although the field is still quite young, there is a core set of institutions now quite established and can be seen as potential sources of learning as well as a growing body of new and interesting models and approaches which can be replicated.

• At the same time, there is a fragility to the field, with many community foundations and other institutions existing on a slim resource base (both human and financial). Several participants also described the challenge of being the only institution of their kind in a particular region or country and the sense of isolation that that can lead to. Although building up a local donor base is a key activity for many, building up trust and credibility is a slow process and sources of international donor funding for this work are limited.

While the group gathered was small and represented only a slice of the field, the global perspectives present around the table offered a sense of legitimacy to the exercise and participants felt that the views presented and issues discussed were reflective of the concerns of the wider community philanthropy field. At the end of the meeting, the group agreed to produce a joint paper, summarizing some of the key conclusions and recommendations which emerged from the meeting and aimed at inviting further discussion from the field more broadly.

The GFCF will make this discussion paper available for further inputs through our website in early 2013.