Field and Partner Events and Conferences

Blue Sky Funders Forum Virtual “Force Forum”

Force Forum #1: Sharing Power – Definitions, Examples and Visions for the Future

September 16, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm EDT

What is working toward our collective vision? What is working against it?

With these questions in mind, Blue Sky community members co-created this force field analysis at our last convening.  As we prepare for our next gathering in the Bay Area in October 2024, Blue Sky is hosting a series of virtual Force Forums. Through these sessions, Blue Sky members will engage thought leaders and leverage their own collective experience, wisdom and thinking to impact the forces working for and against us realizing our shared vision – a world where everyone has the right and opportunity to experience meaningful connections to the outdoors that improve the quality of life, health and social wellbeing.

Blue Sky members and movement leaders identified three forces working for our vision:

1) Power Sharing; 2) New Leaders / Community Voice; 3) Narrative

Power sharing will be the focus of our first session.  The session will highlight a spectrum of power shifts in philanthropy from building community voice on a family foundation board to fully community-led grantmaking.  Our speakers Nancy Bales, Executive Director of the Gray Family Foundation, Rajiv Khanna, Vice President of Center for Transforming Philanthropy at Thousand Currents, and Joleen Ruffin, Chief Financial and Operations Officer of the Kataly Foundation, will:

  • Compare and co-create definitions of power,
  • Describe what power sharing means in the context of their own philanthropic practice,
  • Discuss challenges and opportunities they have encountered as they deepen power sharing in their work, and
  • Lift up examples of power sharing in philanthropy generally, and how we may advance this practice across our sector.

This session will be open to all funders and philanthropic serving organizations and will be recorded.  A follow-up session, Force Forum #2: Sharing Power – Strategies, Tactics, and Action, will be scheduled for Blue Sky members only, where we will facilitate small group discussions to surface actions toward shifting power on individual, organizational, and systemic levels.

Register Here

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