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GivingConferenceHome
Opening Space for Giving to Flourish
What's your passion? What's your gift? And are you giving it as fully as you would like? Are you fulfilled in your giving? Does it express and achieve what you want? Do you sense there must be more? Would your own life be richer if you could just bring your gifts to the world? Could you give and accomplish much more if you had the right partners, could find the right people?
Please join us! ...as we Open a Space for Giving to Flourish. Come make new connections with other givers of time, talent, passion, of financial gifts large or small -- givers of hope, vision, leadership and opportunity. Give others the chance to give your own efforts and projects new life. Find models, mentors and mutual interests. Create Hubs, Nodes and Networks. Share resources and stories. Make new friends and forge new alliances. See below for details.
The giving conference was an amazing experience. I learned a lot about my own motivations for my projects. I saw much more clearly how my goal/result-oriented views have caused frustration and burnout, while people-centered views provide the needed support for hard work. I used to know this well (I had posted Thomas Merton's LetterToAYoungActivist on my wall over ten years ago), but later I thought I could be more efficient (at doing good) if my work was less personal. The conference was a needed reminder that "In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything." (Merton) --CliffAdams (author of the software that Wikipedia was born on)
The Giving Conference brought together philanthropists, weblog publishers, financial advisors, and community organizers. A core group then moved to [OmidyarNetwork] and convened an O.net members summits. Some of the people at the first of those summits went on to organize [RecentChangesCamp], which connected software technologists and community leaders and activists (see OregonianNewspaper?). All of these summits have been 3-day meetings, attended by 40-120 people, and run completely in OpenSpace?. At least three new conferences are now being planned for 2006. [Update May 2006]. TedErnst facilitated another in this lineage, O.net Uganda, 2007 and later introduced WikiSym to meeting in [OpenSpace]. Theresa Williamson took [OpenSpace] back to her work running [CatalyticCommunities] in Rio de Janeiro. UPDATE 2011: See [RecentChangesCamp] which has been a great success story, in its own right, now having been repeated on three continents since 2005. Beyond this, results flowing from [RecentChangesCamp], WikiSym's moves into open space, and other results get harder and harder to track and record -- which is just great.
During Conference
Post-Conference Connecting
Post-Conference Projects
HowToEditNow - the Giving Conference Wiki editing is now closed.