DAY 1 CONCURRENT SESSION | Shifting Power: Understanding Advocacy as an Equity Strategy

In recent years, many funders have focused on how to better infuse equity into their philanthropy, and, separately, on the role of advocacy in their work. What few have realized is that these two concepts are deeply intertwined.

The systemic imbalances of power that give rise to advocacy work are also at the heart of many of the pressing challenges facing communities of color. Forward-thinking funders looking to have impact must address both. This session will explore the connection between race, power, inequity, and pressing social issues.

 Participants will:

• Better understand the relationship between policy, imbalances in power, and the problems they are working to solve;
• Learn where and why their peers have seen success in dismantling barriers that prevent disenfranchised communities from building power;
• Appreciate how investing in systems change differs from programmatic investments; and
• Explore what infrastructure is needed to shift power over time.