Skip to content
< Go to Events

Events

2026 Community-Driven Philanthropy Remote Learning Series

The Community-Driven Philanthropy Remote Learning Series is a five-week opportunity to explore the practices that matter most to nonprofits through a combination of in-depth learning, practical examples, and thought-provoking discussions with the GEO community.

Registration closes on March 6, 2026 at 5:00 pm ET.

Registered participants will receive pre-reading materials and login information one week prior to the series start.

  • Start Date: March 11, 2026
  • End Date: April 15, 2026

Sessions will be held for five weeks, every Wednesday from 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET beginning March 11, 2026 (no session on April 1).

At the heart of our mission and vision is the idea that our grantmaking practices must be community-driven and equity-centered to truly transform our philanthropic culture and practice.

The concept of community-driven philanthropy explores how the participation of nonprofits and communities in philanthropic processes leads to better practices, more authentic discussions, and improved outcomes for everyone involved. Community refers to those who may benefit from or are impacted by grantmakers’ decisions. Spring 2026 will mark our sixth cohort to discuss community-driven philanthropy, exploring what it looks like in practice and how we can embody this equity-centered approach in our grantmaking.

Learning Objectives for this series:

  • Build capacity for having difficult conversations around the historically rooted relationship between philanthropy and community distrust.
  • Understand the conditions necessary to build and sustain trust with community members and the need for building the capacity for long-term social change.
  • Map current and plan future community-driven actions by starting to analyze the role of power and trust and using the Community and Nonprofit Participation Spectrum*.
  • Analyze various toolboxes in the sector, including the Fund for Shared Insight Listening & Feedback Funder Action Menu, NCRP Power Moves and the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, and Feedback Lab’s High-Quality Feedback Loop, to enhance future community-driven philanthropy efforts.
  • Lean into current diagnoses, analyses and interpretations of our roles and the sector of philanthropy; and envision a future of community-driven integration and systems change.
  • Connect and build relationships with other GEO members who can be a resource and support in implementing community-driven philanthropy in their work.

  • Session 1: Wednesday, March 11 – 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET
  • Session 2: Wednesday, March 18 – 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET
  • Session 3: Wednesday, March 25 – 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET
  • Session 4: Wednesday, April 8 – 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET
  • Session 5: Wednesday, April 15 –  2:00 – 4:00 pm ET

GEO members: $650

Nonmembers: $1,000

All registrations are non-refundable. No requests for refunds will be granted for missed sessions. Participants may choose to transfer their registration to a colleague or peer with the same membership level.

GEO Remote Learning Series are open to current GEO members; all staff and trustees of grantmaking institutions; staff of philanthropy-supporting infrastructure groups, such as regional associations of grantmakers and affinity groups; and staff of academic institutions and programs focused primarily on the study of philanthropy and the practice of giving.

We encourage organizations to have multiple individuals at their organization participate in order to apply your learning together. A 10% discount is available when three or more individuals from the same organization participate. Email Joyce (mcdonough@geofunders.org) for the discount code.

If you are not a GEO member, please visit our membership page or email our Membership team at membership@geofunders.org.

Speakers

Katy Love

Katy Love is an experienced practitioner of and advocate for participatory philanthropy. As an independent consultant, she helps funders to develop, implement or assess their community participation in grantmaking, strategy, and governance. She has extensively spoken, written, and trained others on the topic of community participation in philanthropy and is the co-creator of the Advancing Participation in Philanthropy Tool. With Fund for Shared Insight, she led a multi-year participatory grantmaking initiative and co-authored the Participatory Philanthropy Toolkit. Previously, she was the director of the grantmaking team at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, where her team ran six participatory grantmaking programs. She also held roles at the Global Fund for Children and CARE International. She serves on the Steering Committee of the Human Rights Funders Network.

Katy will join us for Session 4, April 8, 2026.

Philip Li

Philip Li is the President & CEO of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation in 2016, Phil served as the Chief Operating Officer at The Century Foundation, a public policy think tank, and before that at the Brooklyn Community Foundation, where he helped the organization convert from a private foundation to a public charity. For four years he led the philanthropic practice at Changing Our World, a nonprofit consultancy and prior to that he worked with the Annie E. Casey Foundation on two of its leadership development initiatives. Phil served as the Executive Director of the Coro New York Leadership Center, a nonprofit that trains and develops individuals interested in public affairs for four years.  He was introduced to Coro as a participant in its Leadership New York program, which prompted him to jump to the nonprofit sector from Wall Street. He started his career at Merrill Lynch and finished it rating junk bonds at Moody’s Investors Service. Phil is co-chair of the Leadership Funders Group and a member of the Steering Committee of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project.

Phil will join us for Session 2, March 18, 2026.

Juan Clavijo

Juan has a passion for data-driven learning that improves social outcomes. In Colombia – his home country – Juan worked as a consultant, focusing on political consulting and social policy monitoring and evaluation for public and private sector clients, including USAID and Univision Network. Before moving to Colombia, Juan worked for a Canadian non-profit implementing a program to improve access to higher education for indigenous youth in rural areas around Cuzco, Peru.

Juan will join us for Session 5, April 15, 2026.

Jasmine Burnett

Jasmine is experienced in strategic planning, program design and narrative development. She began her career in nonprofit strategy consulting, working with organizations to create theories of change, improve their operations and create new programs. In 2020, she became an analyst in the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank’s Department of Community and Economic Development, helping practitioners in the Southeast create more equitable COVID-19 recovery policies and practices, and co-designing a leadership training program for emerging leaders in the region.

Through her professional and life experiences, Jasmine has learned that the antidote to oppression is building power within exploited communities and participating in struggles for self-determination among oppressed people, globally — and she encourages organizations to shape their efforts around these aims.

Jasmine will join us for Session 5, April 15, 2026.

Related Events

See all Events