Conference reports

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations Conference

Robyn Scott
1 June 2010
Alliance magazine

The theme of this year’s GEO Conference in Pittsburgh on 12-14 April, ‘Unleashing Philanthropy’s Potential: Smarter Grantmaking for Better Results’, was firmly in line with GEO’s focus: how funders can help their grantees achieve success and meaningful results. Sessions throughout the conference clearly reflected what is being done and what could be done to improve philanthropic impact.  

Sessions were organized around five key areas: foundation effectiveness, leadership, learning, money (types of support grantmakers can provide to strengthen nonprofits’ financial sustainability) and stakeholder engagement. Among the ideas that resonated with me (most were not new) were the importance of creating a learning culture that improves impact; the value of embedding meaningful grantee conversations in foundation processes; and the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from what we do.  

An interesting discussion took place on the notion of empathy. Dev Patnaik, author of Wired to Care and a keynote speaker, advocated a deeper level of empathy that ensures an organization's work is informed by the opinions and perspectives of the people affected by that work, while Bill Strickland from the Manchester Bidwell Corporation talked inspiringly of how he has not yet lost the ‘sensitivity to human suffering’.

There were three recurring themes at the conference:

  • Supporting overhead is good.
  • Philanthropy needs more empathy.
  • Collaboration is critical.

These were supported by speakers with an enviable depth of experience who shared their wisdom and insight generously. The real test for those of us fortunate to participate is the ‘so what question’. What will change as a result of attending the conference? I came away knowing more and with a renewed sense of energy to use the connections I made and share the knowledge I had gained to achieve better results.  

Robyn Scott is Chief Executive, Philanthropy New Zealand. Email robyn@philanthropy.org.nz

For more information
www.geofunders.org