Can Philanthropy Help Shape the Next Economy? A Workshop Series for a Just Transition

Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.
What will it take to move us into a just and sustainable future?

Funders and affinity groups across a wide array of sectors and constituencies have come together to organize a workshop series that seeks to create a conversation within philanthropy about the deep, systemic causes of the many issues they fund — from poverty and inequality, to climate, health, food systems and democracy.

Through a series of six two-hour workshops over the course of the next ten months, tied together by a short film produced for this series entitled How We Live: A Journey Towards a Just Transition, we will shed light on the myriad ways in which organizations are altering their strategies and tactics to address the root causes of the problems they face — problems which are connected in the structure of the economy — and what support funders can offer for these efforts.

These workshops will ask us to consider:

  • The role of grassroots organizations and movements in constructing new narratives and visions for a more just economy and healthy planet
  • How we can move past the growth paradigm and tie together issues of racial justice, economic justice, ecological justice and democracy
  • The importance of seeing our work into a global systemic context

Perhaps most importantly, this workshop series will challenge the way in which we think about economics — as a process of caretaking rather than as an abstract set of laws.

This workshop series is being co-sponsored by Philanthropy New York, with staffing support from the Sister Fund, EDGE Funders Alliance and the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, and with collaboration and additional intellectual support from foundation networks and institutions listed below.

Workshops

In addition to those listed above, this workshop series is organized with the support of the Sustainability Funders/New Economy Discussion Group, New World Foundation and V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

Please join us.