As a UK-based visitor to Confluence Philanthropy events for over a decade now, I can honestly say each time it’s like coming home to the best, closest community of friends and allies. One thread connects us: we’re traveling forwards together, pointing in the same direction. Whatever may separate us apart (in my case, physical distance and a certain Englishness!) in terms of our professional backgrounds, ethnicities, cultural experiences – the challenges we face are profoundly similar. These are the challenges of overcoming political and economic oppression (whether at home or abroad); of facing and solving the climate crisis; the threat to humanity of unconstrained AI; of addressing inequality; or learning how to use financial capital, human capital, or social capital better. It’s why standing together is so important at this moment.
The Confluence Philanthropy community is a welcoming one, embracing new perspectives, new ideas, new ways of looking at challenges. The best parts of Confluence convenings for me are listening into conversations, debates, and as ever, learning something new, whilst meeting someone new. And Dana, Confluence’s CEO, brings her particular strengths of reasoning, passion, and commitment as ever that elevates these events into something special. Whether you are quiet and reflective and just want to listen, or are loud and engaging because you want to be heard, the convenings bring together opportunities to learn. There is something precious here for everyone.
I bring to this conversation my own experience of twenty years in sustainable finance (and winner of the Joan Bavaria Sustainable Finance Life-Time Achievement Award from CEREs/Trillium) and fifteen years as a non-profit leader, with Carbon Tracker. As a new Board member of Overview Effect, Confluence's new public benefit LLC, I’m delighted to work with this group of leaders, whilst buddying up again with an old friend, Jed Emerson. It’s great to be part of this amazing team, this amazing community of leading practitioners in our space.
It’s an old cliché that the ‘commitment and passion of a handful of leaders can change the world for the better’. I think that’s especially true. You can find them huddled in a group, deep in conversation over a coffee at Confluence Philanthropy.