Joseph Rowntree Foundation returned for a second year of the funding, philanthropy and investment conference called Next Frontiers – Unlocking resources in this time of crisis and possibility. 

With 60 speakers and 1000 +attendees (in person and virtual) the event brought innovators and changemakers across the philanthropic and investment worlds together, giving them a chance to learn, make new connections and discover ways we can influence greater change.

Conference report

Dismantling old ways and beckoning a new age of wealth transfer

Shafi Musaddique, Alliance magazine

Last year’s inaugural Next Frontiers conference set the tone for a radical approach to exploring investment and philanthropy. This year’s edition went a step further, with key developments that may well have ushered in a new age of wealth transfer.

With some 460 in person attendees and another 667 joining online, the platform was set for a day of courage, speaking out and visioning “other world’s being possible”, as declared by hosts Yuan Yang and Hettie O Brien, journalists at the Financial Times and the Guardian respectively. 

Both demanded in an opening address that all those involved in philanthropy find courage to create exponential change. Read more…

Annette Dhami, Dark Matter Labs.

A common refrain at Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Next Frontiers conference in London last month is that ‘philanthropy needs a new operating system’. If that’s the case, then what are the implications for the infrastructure which underpins it? How can legal contracts – expressions of power relationships in concrete form – and other invisible forms of control be ‘re-wired’ to make our systems more human centred? And is the grantkmaking community ready for such a re-writing of the rules? After leading a lively session on the topic, Dhami sat down with Alliance’s Charles Keidan to explain more about why philanthropy needs to invest in a ‘boring revolution’. Read more…

Reflections from delegates

21st century philanthropy: A tool all of its own

Maxine Thomas-Asante, Ten Years’ Time

Returning from the Next Frontiers conference thoughts were flowing around my mind at such a pace it was difficult to catch even one. Yet, of all the provocations and calls to action I heard during the day, the most pressing one for me was that the time is now. For too long philanthropy has constrained itself to the limitations of other avenues of change. Philanthropy is not the market, the academy, politics or diplomacy. It is a tool of all of its own. Only when philanthropy embraces the unique qualities and tools at its disposal, can philanthropy have the full impact in accelerating social change and contributing to a better tomorrow. Read more…

Reflections from Next Frontiers 2023

Leah Black, Regenerative Futures Fund

Next Frontiers challenged my thinking. An injection of new concepts, and a glue to join together ideas that were already buzzing around my mind. I also met 3D versions of people I knew only from online worlds.

In my day job leading the development of the Regenerative Futures Fund, in Edinburgh, I’m immersed in this world. Most days since Next Frontiers I’ve either thought about what I heard, told someone, or chatted elements over with colleagues who were there too. Read more…

From the fringes, to next frontiers

Seth Tabatznik & Renata Minerbo, Be The Earth

We thought the Next Frontiers conference was an amazing space for activating the mind, and for signposting all the different actors and leaders in the space. We feel intense gratitude to the Joseph Rowntree team, who did such an incredible job in so many ways. It was hopeful and encouraging to see how post-capitalist thought has firmly entered the mainstream; no longer perceived as fringe idealism, creating new kinds of economic systems is now widely understood as essential and urgent work towards the future flourishing of all living beings. Read more…

Deep mindset shifts and the importance of economic democracy

Sarah Teacher, Impact Investing Institute

At the Impact Investing Institute, we connect capital to impact. We believe mainstream capital markets have the power to scale new economic ideas needed to provide solutions to the great challenges of our time. Next Frontiers was chockful of those radical ideas and frameworks.  

There were two key themes that jumped out for me. Read more…

Past, present, future

Genevieve Maitland Hudson, Social Investment Business

The next frontiers of funding are on a bumpy journey through time. We were sent off into the future from a present of exponential change, invited to consider whether our states of mind are useful right now, before taking a sharp turn backwards to the practices of our ancestors, and all in the first fifteen minutes. By the end of the first hour we’d looked ahead to 2035, and its regenerative neighbourhoods, and we hit the coffee break with the idea of July 2024 just ahead of us, tantalisingly within reach. Read more…