It’s early morning, the conference has not started yet, but the European Community Foundation Initiative delegation of 20 Community Foundation practitioners from different countries is already working setting the ground for the coming event, discussing the challenges we face in our everyday work and the expectations for the conference.

The breakdown of community foundations (CFs) seems to be so different from the first look – Russia (80 CFs), Hungary (3CFs), Germany (over 400 CFs), Denmark (no CFs), Netherlands (around 35 CFs), Poland (20-30 CFs)… but when you dive deeper you realize that the challenges that we face are often common. Such as how to improve our brand and develop communication strategies for the movement, how to build the field, find common ground considering the diversity, how to collaborate, how to make keep involved and active when grant funding is not possible, and how to measure impact. To answer these questions we it is vital to share experience, reflect together, engage fruitfully and keep partners. Bringing people together in one room helps us to reach more. We are becoming the voice to solve the problems when we collaborate.

Of course we are different and work in different communities and environments, but we should act and speak as one! And the critical factor for success are the people, we have amazing people that are committed to their communities and work that they do! So let’s stay tuned and try to learn as much as possible from our UK colleagues’ experience in the coming days at the 2019 UKCF Conference.

Irina Novikova, CAF Russia