Answered by Hanna Surmatz from EFC and Max von Abendroth from DAFNE The report can be found here Can you please tell us a bit about this report and why the EFC and DAFNE have decided to commission it? Towards the end of 2016 and following the failure of the joint European Foundation Statute…
Earlier this year the EFC, Council on Foundations (CoF), DAFNE and WINGS proposed actions to member organizations in order to encourage FATF to formally engage in an improved and structured dialogue with the NPO sector. We asked Hanna Surmatz, the EFC senior legal affairs officer, to update the network on recent developments.
Space for civil society has been closing around the globe, with a noticeable rise in restrictive laws and pushback by state and non-state actors. In mid-June, Ariadne, the European Foundation Centre, and the International Human Rights Funders Group convened an international group of funders for a two-day workshop to develop strategies to counter this trend.
The link between philanthropy, environment and development is key for a sustainable future, and the connection was very well made at the EFC AGA and Conference in Milan. Ana Pinho, WINGS knowledge management coordinator, reports.
Caroline Hartnell (Alliance magazine) reports from the 26th EFC Annual Conference in Milan, focusing on 2015 as a critical year for change. “European foundations have a responsibility to recognize that what is needed now is not system maintenance and recovery; it is system innovation, redesign and transformation.”
Because the state of cross-border giving is important to many of our members, today we are sharing the wider NPO coalition’s recently submitted comments on the draft FATF BPP, signed by more than 70 organizations, including important next steps your organization can take locally in the coming weeks.
Hanna Surmatz (EFC) gives an update on the Financial Action Task Force’s revision of the “Best Practices Paper” (BPP) on Recommendation 8, asking for support for the nonprofit sector recommendations from FATF member governments.
WINGS membership and development coordinator Laura Fernandez reports on the 2014 EVPA Annual Conference in Berlin. “Collaboration was a key theme throughout the conference, drawing on the history of the host city, which illustrates the power of collaboration to confront challenges when building communities around a common purpose.”
From 3-7 November, the European Foundation Centre will celebrate its 25th anniversary with networking events, a multimedia exhibition, digital timeline, powerful documentary screenings and more.
Today more than 16 countries have joined the European Day of Foundations and Donors, where a wide variety of events and activities are offering general public insights into the invaluable and diverse work of foundations.
Lourdes Sanz-Moguel of CEMEFI reflects on WINGSForum 2014 and the importance of communicating the benefits of networking. “Understanding the network and its power is especially important for WINGS members that are membership associations, because it provides a set of insights they can pass down to their own membership, in order to continue the work and inspire new levels of commitment.”
Alliance magazine has put together a team of bloggers to report from the European Foundation Centre’s 25th Annual General Meeting and Conference, to be held 15-17 May in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The theme of the conference is ‘Rethinking Europe: Solidarity, civil society and political governance’.
In the initial phase, the Forum will focus specifically on examining how foundations support innovation in two areas: advancing citizen participation and good governance in cities; and catalysing new financing vehicles for urban development.
SAVE THE DATE: 24 January 2014 from 11:30 until 14:30 Exchange on Preventing Terrorist Abuse of Nonprofit Organizations: Implications for the Future Regulatory Framework
As priorities are redefined, the question of how philanthropic organisations can contribute to the advancement of the post-2015 agenda becomes an increasingly pressing issue. This webinar with the EFC, Ford Foundation, OECD netFWD, and UNDP follows up on current discussions about the role these organisations can play in supporting development efforts. Watch now.
The webinar will set out the current state of play and explore how foundations can engage at the local and international levels on the post-2015 global agenda to ensure that the future development goals address and contribute to advancing a sustainable urban future.
As we look beyond the 2015 deadline for achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the sector continues to refine its priorities accordingly. There are many ways to look at how individuals and organisations can contribute, one of which considers the growing urban landscape.
Ezra Mbogori of the African Grantmakers Network saw PtP as providing an ‘important’ opportunity to free African civil society organizations from sole dependence on external funding and create meaningful, local sources of revenue. Jenny Hodgson of the Global Fund for Community Foundations echoed this observation and agreed that there are important possibilities to use the PtP concept to buttress a number of promising but still struggling community foundations in the South. Article by Lester Salamon.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were at the heart of discussions on 27 September, as various stakeholders met at the Ford Foundation in New York to discuss how philanthropies and their civil society partners can contribute to the future development agenda, to be renewed in 2015.
What makes for the success of a side event to the UN General Assembly, at a time when world leaders are discussing the contours of a new development framework and are expected to sign an “outcome document” on post-2015? What do we, as representatives of the philanthropic sector, want out of this important event: high level attendance? Stimulating discussions? A sense that key challenges are being unfolded and dissected to help us walk the talk? Surely, all of the above would be good. Yet, this time, my metrics for success will be linked to our ability to redefine the way we look at the Milky Way of development. Article by Bathylle Missika
Philanthropy in Focus 