Designing and delivering 50+ online sessions for 380 philanthropic decision-makers and activists
Our client
The Global Philanthropy Project (GPP) is a global collaboration of funders and philanthropic advisors. Their mission: expand global philanthropic support to advance the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people in the Global South and East.
Our client’s big question
How can we gather hundreds of peers to lastingly advance some of the thinking in our field?
The brief
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, our client wanted to gather grantmakers, philanthropic networks and aligned colleagues in the field of progressive philanthropy to build shared analysis around attacks on women’s, LGBTI, and other human rights – and strategically respond together.
We were briefed to help create and manage an engaging online summit for professional grantmakers to learn together, reflect, and identify their next steps.
What we did
We helped our client and a planning committee of five foundations refine their existing concept so it would be as impactful as possible. Then, we:
- Helped design the online summit so it would deliver the perfect outcomes
- Helped the client select the right platform, and set it up for them
- Assembled a coherent and convincing summit structure
- Helped the client invite and select 75 session proposals (reviewed by a dozen committee members) for their fit with the summit concept, objectives and outcomes, and their facilitation and engagement potential
- Crafted a sharp and engaging participant experience, from the initial invitation and website to the live summit and follow-up communication
- Designed and helped deliver a dozen key sessions, such as the opening, closing, summary, and VIP sessions
- Set up bespoke processes to manage detailed information about sessions, speakers, and participants
- Managed the project over 9 months
We delivered
We delivered a virtual event that ran from March to June 2021.
With over 50 diverse sessions, ’Shimmering Solidarity: Global Rights Summit’ offered 380 participants a chance to exchange among peers and with experts, and share analysis, strategy, and collaboration across multiple interconnected grant-making areas.
We set up a comprehensive event platform on which participants could select sessions based on their interests by region and/or by thematic area.
In addition to 5 clear tracks, every session and participant could be found through 16 harmonised thematic areas, making session selection and networking easy.
Participants could also network in a virtual café room at all times, and interact with summit sponsors.
Where
Online
Impact and feedback
Sessions were very well attended: 4 in 5 sessions had more than 20 participants, leading to fruitful and generative conversation.
The summit increased our client’s visibility, and conversations that led to tangible new initiatives and funding for the next years.