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Archive for the ‘Global Community’ Category

Triumphant IFC Online marks turning point for Resource Alliance

Posted on: October 21st, 2020 by Resource Alliance No Comments

Triumphant IFC Online marks turning point for Resource Alliance as it successfully pivots to year-round global community model 

The Resource Alliance defied the obstacles created by a global pandemic to deliver the biggest, most- ethnically, intellectually, gender and culturally diverse IFC programme ever — fully virtual for 1200 fundraisers and changemakers from 80+ countries from 13 – 16 October 2020.   

With the plenary and big conversation speakers reading like a ‘Who’s Who’ of social change accelerators, the IFC Online 2020 programme was designed to challenge and question, while at the same time provide practical advice for a global audience responsible for resourcing social impact.  

Author of the award–winning book “This is Not Propaganda” Peter Pomerantsev kicked off the IFC Online programme with a thought-provoking presentation on the rise of misinformation and populism.  He challenged NGOs to transform their communications from a narrow theme to being bigger and more holistic. “The other side are thinking very big and we need to be thinking bigger… We need to look at how we communicate facts and foster a factual discourse around our issues,” he said. 

In the Big Conversation which followed, Marcus Missen (Director of Fundraising and Communications, WaterAid UK) facilitated a robust and headline grabbing discussion between Dr Danny Sriskandarajah (CEO, Oxfam GB), Clare Farrell (Co-Founder, Extinction Rebellion) and Kumi Naidoo (Global Ambassador, Africans Rising) on the topic “Is our sector facing an existential crisis?”.   

 On Wednesday, the audience was treated to a first-hand account of how the fundraising team at the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI), led by Jayne George, weathered the COVID storm to transform their fundraising during lockdown, by putting their donors front and centre as ‘one of their crew’. 

The virtual stage was then given over to a special COVID-response inspired IWITOT (I Wish I’d Thought of That) delivered by SOFII and Open, featuring creative and innovative fundraising campaigns presented by speakers from the Americas, UK, Europe, East Asia, South Africa and Canada. 

On Thursday, delegates were challenged — both personally and organisationally —by a ‘riveting’ presentation from Black Lives Matter International Ambassador, Janaya ‘Future’ Khan, who invited the IFC audience of fundraisers and changemakers to “be the disruptors of truth and diviners of change” as they reimagine a society free of racial injustice. 

Delegates were then invited into a critical debate on the Big Conversation topic: “Can NGOs and social movements be authentic allies” led by Michael Silberman (Global Director Mobilisation Lab) with Madhuresh Kumar (National Convenor, National Alliance of People’s Movements, India); Carys Afoko (Co-founder, Level-Up UK); Masana Ndinga-Kanga (Crisis Response Fund Lead at CIVICUS, South Africa) and Kirsty McNeill (Executive Director for Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns at Save the Children).   

The day ended with a celebration of fundraising and change-making excellence and innovation at the Global Fundraising Awards, with finalists representing 13 countries and a cross-section of causes.    

IFC culminated on Friday with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, who delivered an inspired session on the theme “Building a Better Tomorrow” — with a call for all to support “creating a world of three zeros: zero net carbon emissions; zero wealth concentration; and zero unemployment”.  This was followed by a robust debate in the Big Conversation of how to #ShiftThePower from top-heavy, top down systems of international development towards a flatter and more equitable paradigm of people-based development.  The discussion was led by Jenny Hodgson (Executive Director of the Global Fund for Community Philanthropy), with Nana Afadzinu (Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute), Ambika Satkunanathan (Chairperson of the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust), Barbara Nöst (CEO of the Zambian Governance Foundation for Civil Society) and Wolfgang Jamann (Executive Director of the of the International Centre for Civil Society). 

IFC Online represents a turning point in the Resource Alliance’s history, which through COVID has transformed itself to a global community model, reinvigorated the IFC and made it accessible to hundreds more through a new equitable membership model.  

Through the Global Community, the Resource Alliance will provide year-round, continuous learning and engagement on the most powerful ways to resource social change – not just financial but also human, technical and intellectual.   

“Our commitment is to democratize access to information. At the same time to ensure that information is provoking the right questions and challenging people in the right ways to deal with this incredible transformative shift that is underway,” said Bill Toliver, Chair of the Resource Alliance Board of Directors.  

In his closing remarks to bring IFC Online 2020 to an end, incoming CEO, Brian Higgins reaffirmed the Resource Alliance’s commitment to lead the social impact community in thought and in action by sharing knowledge and best practice and by bringing people together digitally and in person. 

“The Resource Alliance is embracing innovation to provide you with the resources and tools to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be and then beyond that visible horizon into a new future that may not even seem possible now. Innovation is not optional, it is something we must do.  It is built on experience, our successes and our mistakes. Driven by the needs of you, our community, Resource Alliance is committed to this innovation journey.” 

The full IFC Online programme of recorded video sessions is available through the Global Community for members.  To find out more visit www.resource-alliance.org/global-community/ 

Introducing… The Resource Alliance Global Community

Posted on: July 2nd, 2020 by Resource Alliance No Comments

To our global community of Fundraisers, Changemakers and Advocates,

For the past 40 years the Resource Alliance has been driven by one goal: to bring the global community of fundraisers and changemakers together to unleash new ideas, new models and new thinking to accelerate progress in the world. Whenever we come together as a community to debate and share our best thinking, the connections and relationships we form are meaningful and enduring — and they make a difference.

Today, a global pandemic, economic uncertainty and social unrest have created an urgent call-to-action for all of us in the social impact community. There has never been a more important time in our 40-year history to accelerate change — to question conventional wisdom, to move past incremental progress, to explore new ways to make a difference. It is time to come together and help each other do what we have been called to do. Better than we have ever done before.

At the same time, the very issues that are driving us to act with urgency have made it impossible to contemplate a gathering of 1,000 people from around the world at IFC this October.

So, for the past several months — guided by the principles of our manifesto, the wise counsel of our Advisory Panel, Ambassadors, Partners, and many members of our community around the world — the Resource Alliance team has been reconceptualising how we can best serve the social impact community at this critically important time, and beyond. Better than we have ever done before.

We must create possibility from what once seemed impossible, we must move the immovable. These are incredibly challenging times, but they are also exciting. We have the opportunity and obligation to do more than just ‘go online’. We must create a new, truly inclusive and engaging way for fundraisers and changemakers to help one another — not just once a year, but every day.

We must create a place where people can get more than ever, because they are able to give more than ever. A place where people can grow through learning from their peers globally and grow even more by sharing their own knowledge, experience, time and talent. A place where each of us can make the greatest possible difference by helping all of us thrive. Because when we do, we will have the greatest hope of building a more just, equitable and healthy world — for everyone.

We are humbled to offer an entirely new concept in accelerating change:

The Resource Alliance Global Community

The Resource Alliance Global Community is a social movement of, by and for fundraisers and changemakers. It’s all about people power. It is a portal of possibility. A network for new ideas. A place where people from around the world come together to help each other do our best work, because our best work is what the world requires of us.

Members of the Resource Alliance Community will receive more than 120 online and face-to-face opportunities to learn, collaborate, create, problem solve and explore new thinking over the course of each year. Each designed to improve our members effectiveness in resourcing the critical work of the organisations and causes they serve.

Membership also includes access to IFC 2020: virtual experience. Although a global pandemic makes it impossible to bring together 1,000 people from around the world this October, we are committed to providing a unique and groundbreaking virtual experience that will inspire, inform and energize. We have no delusions that a virtual IFC will ever replace the power of our face-to-face interactions, and we WILL always commit to having face-to-face events as soon as possible. But, together, guided by what makes an IFC so important, we can create something that revolutionises what is possible in a virtual format.  IFC 2020: virtual experience will be a true laboratory of great ideas for people who resource social impact organisations.

We are committed to providing the most equitable access to the best content, collaboration and experiences available anywhere — for everyone. Never has the world been more in need of a sense of community. While we aren’t all in the same boat, we’re certainly navigating the same storm. Our focus is on growing a global community to accelerate change, and we can’t do that without you.

It’s a new world. And a new alliance.

#JoinTheAlliance