L’ECONOMIA SOCIALE, STIMOLO DEL POTENZIALE TRASFORMATIVO DELLE COMUNITÀ
In vista dell’European Economy Social Summit, previsto a Mannheim il 26-27 maggio, REVES ( European Network of Cities & Regions for the Social Economy) e CEFEC (Social Firms Europe) organizzano, in collaborazione con Assifero, Dafne – Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe e ECFI (European Community Foundation Initiative) una serie di tre workshop online dedicati al ruolo dell’economia sociale quale motore del cambiamento trasformativo delle comunità locali.
Di seguito il calendario degli appuntamenti:
- 24 marzo, ore 14-17 “Employment and growth” – Green economy in improving employment, organizzato dal CEFEC. Maggiori informazioni e l’agenda; Registrati all’evento
- 16 aprile, ore 9-12.30 “Participatory co-design of development strategies in rural and peripheral areas“, organizzato da REVES (seguiranno maggiori dettagli per l’iscrizione)
- 28 aprile ore 14-17 “Unlocking the potential of local action for global good – Foundations supporting local social economy for 2030 Agenda” organizzato da Assifero, in collaborazione con Dafne – Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe e ECFI- European Community Foundation Initiative (seguiranno maggiori dettagli per l’iscrizione)
FARE FRONTE ALLA DOPPIA CRISI DEL CAMBIAMENTO CLIMATICO E DELLE CRESCENTI DISEGUAGLIANZE
In questo articolo, Leslie Johnston, CEO della Laudes Foundation, delinea il piano strategico quinquennale della fondazione, che si pone l’ambizioso obiettivo, insieme agli altri attori dell’ecosistema, di promuovere, entro il 2030, un’economia più positiva e attenta al clima, dove gli incentivi vengono ridisegnati in tal senso e i mercati e le imprese lavorano per ridurre le diseguaglianze e contrastare il cambiamento climatico.
L’azione della fondazione si focalizzerà principalmente su tre specifici settori: la moda, il settore edilizio e i mercati finanziari e dei capitali.
LA CRISI DI OGGI RICHIEDE UNA FORTE LEADERSHIP, CHE SI CONCENTRI SULLE CONNESSIONI, SULLA COSTRUZIONE DI PONTI, E SU OBIETTIVI COMUNI
A settembre 2020, Delphine Moralis è diventata la prima donna CEO dell’European Foundation Centre (EFC). Porta con se una vasta esperienza nel settore non profit e una visione unica di leadership forte. In questa conversazione, condivide come i suoi figli vedono il suo lavoro, i suoi pensieri sul lavorare in partnership con l’Unione Europea e le sue speranze per un’organizzazione ombrello della filantropia europea.
IL PARLAMENTO EUROPEO HA ADOTTATO IL PROGRAMMA INVESTEU 2021-2027
Dopo molti mesi di delibere, il Parlamento europeo ha adottato il programma InvestEU per il 2021-2027 nella sua sessione plenaria del 9 marzo 2021. Ora deve ancora passare attraverso la fase finale di adozione da parte del Consiglio Europeo.
InvestEU si baserà sulle esperienze e sostituirà l’attuale EFSI (European Fund for Strategic Investment), chiamato anche Piano Juncker, istituito nel 2015. Il programma riunisce diversi strumenti finanziari dell’Unione Europea in un’unica struttura.
WORLD’S FIRST PRIVATE EQUITY IMPACT FUND FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA IS FULLY DEPLOYED AND IMPACTING ON COMMUNITIES
This is great news for independent media and demonstrates once again that impact investing is an effective way to support independent media and their vital role in open societies.
Independent media expose corruption and hold governments to account. They provide vital information on issues like the environment, health and gender, and ensure fair elections. Press freedom is recognised by UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 as contributing to peace, justice and strong institutions. From an impact point of view, it’s hard to think of a sector with more wide-ranging impact – or where there’s greater need. According to Freedom House’s most recent global analysis, in 2017 only 13% of the world’s population had access to a free press, and since then the situation has got much worse.
EMOF was launched by Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), a New York-based not-for-profit investment fund that has invested $240 million in independent media in 25 years, and closed at $12.9 million in December 2017. Investors in EMOF I include Denmark’s Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), JP Politiken Hus (a leading Danish media company), Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) and Dutch foundation Stichting DOEN, in addition to MDIF.
HOW TO INVEST IN NARRATIVE COMPETENCY AND COMBAT TOXIC POLARIZATION
In part one of this series, we argued for why philanthropy should invest in narrative competency to help combat toxic polarisation. Here, we offer some recommendations for how. Let’s be audacious!
By using a cultural lens for programming, philanthropy can help overcome the oversimplification of narrative and identity arising out of deep polarisation and can help sustain curiosity about the ‘other.’
Distinguish narrative engagement from strategic communications: ‘Narratives’ is a term ubiquitous in the social change industry. Narrative competency is more than improved storytelling or strategic communications; rather, it is a mindset shift and a disciplined practice to embed within the philanthropic ecosystem. Philanthropy should make use of narrative analysis tools to continually interrogate how we and others are making sense of the issues we care about to inform programming, partnership strategies, and efforts to build power and culture change.
Commit to a learning agenda and make use of academic partnerships. Social scientists are conducting important research on how change happens. However, this research can be inaccessible at a time when practitioners would benefit greatly from deep dives into science, and new frameworks for understanding narratives and social change. Foundations can help link activists and practitioners with academics, to support the dissemination of narrative research.
AFRICAN PHILANTHROPY IS EMERGING AS A FORCE. HOW CAN IT INCREASE SUPPORT TO AFRICAN NGOs?
When the first confirmed sub-Saharan Africa case of Covid-19 was detected in Nigeria in February 2020, many African governments moved quickly to contain the virus. While other parts of the world struggled to slow the pandemic, Africa was lauded by many as better prepared, owing in part to the continent’s experiences with past public health crises like Ebola.
African philanthropy was part of this story. Within a month of the first reported Covid-19 case in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya set up specialised Covid-19 relief funds – and African donors gave 62 percent of their large gifts (i.e. larger than US$ 1 million) by value to those funds in 2020. In total, as our recently published research brief highlights, there were 45 large gifts committed from March through December of 2020 in three countries, totalling $269 million. To put it plainly, in just one year, African philanthropists gave seven times the annual average number of large gifts for the previous decade. While the response’s scale was unprecedented, it echoed the history of African philanthropy responding in times of crisis: In earlier research, we found that roughly 30 percent of large gifts by African philanthropists were committed to disaster relief between 2010 and 2019.