#ShiftThePower: A global conversation rooted in the local
The Global Fund for Community Foundations, Kenya Community Development Foundation and East Africa Philanthropy Network invite you to a meeting on Tuesday 9th April at Four points by Sheraton, Hurling ham, Nairobi from 10am to 3pm (including lunch), for a conversation on #ShiftThePower and its relevance and potential in Kenya, East Africa and globally.
The #ShiftThePower Global Summit took place in Bogotá in December 2023. It brought together 730 people from 77 countries, including 30 participants from Kenya where the #ShiftThePower movement has strong roots and representation. Participants represented the range of the civil society and funding eco-system, with the largest group coming from grassroots institutions, networks and movements, many of whose work often lies beyond the gaze and reach of big donors.
The meeting on 9th April will be an opportunity to share insights from the Summit from some of those that were there, and to consider how best to forge and maintain pathways of practice and influence between and among people who are, in one way or another, crafting and testing new people-centered practices and approaches that are driven from the bottom-up, or who are leading experiments and authentic efforts to shift power from within the existing system.
The Nairobi meeting will bring together a cross section of civil society actors, including local community foundations
and other community philanthropy organizations, funders and commentators to:
1. Hear from some of those who participated in the Summit, both from Kenya and internationally, about some of the key messages and the potential opportunities that can be harnessed in pursuit of a more equitable global civil society and funding system that is based on new ways of deciding and doing, that harnesses and mobilizes solidarity, money and other resources in ways that center equity, justice and flourishing lives for all.
2. Reflect on the current context in Kenya, where domestic philanthropy and the localization agenda of external donors and INGOs offer potential new pathways through which power can be shifted, at a time when livelihoods are increasingly under threat from climate change, particularly among the most vulnerable, and grassroots women’s movements are mobilizing to demand an end to femicide and violence against women.
3. Consider concrete pathways and lines of action (practices, commitments, advocacy, etc.) that will advance the #ShiftThePower agenda and the vision of a good society in Kenya and East Africa more broadly.
About #ShiftThePower
#ShiftThePower is a mobilizing force that seeks to highlight, harness, resource, legitimize and join up these new ways of “deciding and doing” that are emerging around the world under the larger umbrella of movement generosity so that it can galvanize a vision of a good society and serve as a force for genuine and lasting change. It is time to further connect bottom-up, people-centered practices, initiatives and organizations, which when considered collectively can form the basis of an alternative system, based on distributed networks and shared power. How, for example, can power at the edges of our societies be harnessed at scale so that community-led initiatives shift from being heart-warming, one-off stories to constituting the essential basic fabric of a participatory, inclusive and decentralized society?