Over 700 delegates from around the world and across philanthropy, civil society and international development joined the three day #ShiftThePower Summit in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. This is the second international Summit following on from Johannesburg in 2016.

Participants were welcomed by the co-MCs, Atzimba Baltazar Macías, COMETA (Mexico) and Jimm & Jimm Chick Fomunjong, West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). ‘It is very important for you to feel free,’ said Chick. ‘We are creating the civil society we want, and this is the space to do it.’

With the audience packed into the auditorium for the plenary, we were asked to stand and move left for ‘yes’, right for ‘no’ or to stay in the middle when presented with several statements about the sector. The first statement: I am feeling hopeful, confident and excited that together we can build a good society and the system that we want.

The majority of the room said ‘yes’, and the energy in the room was significant. However, a few remained in the middle – ‘700 sounds like a lot of people, but we need thousands. We need hundreds of thousands of us’ – and even no: ‘What do we mean by ‘a good society’? This isn’t the same for everyone,’ said one delegate.

We have what we need in this room to build the philanthropy and development aid system that we want. This time, most of the audience stood in the middle of the room. ‘I believe in what’s been said, but I remain sceptical about the willingness of powerful money people. We need them in the room, too, to honour the promises that they have made,’ said one. Those who voted yes declared that what was needed was an ‘abundancy mindset’, and ‘If we can’t do it, who can? If we don’t, who’s going to believe us?’ Those who voted ‘no’ disagreed with the premise of the statement. ‘We need to not depend on the philanthropy aid system.’

Jenny Hodgson, Global Fund for Community Foundations and one of the founders of #ShiftThePower then welcomed the delegates. ‘Many are here from hidden wars, crises and conflicts – #ShiftThePower puts people back at the heart of our work,’ said Hodgson. ‘2016 was the evolution of the journey that started in community philanthropy. Community resources are rarely acknowledged… what was happening at the edges, the essence of this work was the power of trust and dignity.

‘At a time when the world is in crisis, the world is not together.’

The day then shifted into a series of lightning talks. First to get on the stage was Nana Afadzinu, WACSI (Ghana), emphasising the importance of relying on one another. No more individual agendas. ‘When a tool hits the stump, the whole body bends to take care of it.’ It is also imperative, said Afadzinu, that we transform the extraction of Indigenous knowledge. ‘We must acknowledge Indigenous knowledge and allow the owners to benefit from it.’

Magda Pocheć, co-founder of the Feminist Fund in Poland, was next to speak. ‘For the last eight years, my country has been under far right rule,’ she began. Pocheć described deteriorating political contexts ‘multiplied by crises’; 52 confirmed deaths of asylum seekers in forests, and seven pregnant women dead from being denied medical assistance. (LINK??)

Pocheć spoke on the Feminist Fund’s five strategies to support the most oppressed communities and truly shift power:

1. Intersectional organising
2. Facilitating strategies amongst different communities
3. Valuing local change
4. Regenerative activism
5. Transformative (collective) leadership

Last to give a lightning talk was Kelly Bates, Interactive Institute for Social Change. Bates spoke of love and healing as a force for social change, where love ‘resists the awful current popular practice of turning people into enemies.

‘Funders should be funding healing and restoration – let us not pretend that this isn’t hard.’ Love is transformative, and is vital in creating a more just and equitable world.

Amy McGoldrick is the Head of Marketing, Advertising and Events at Alliance magazine