True to its intention of staying light on its feet and not becoming embedded in any one region or cultural, fiscal or legal environment, WINGS has moved to Brussels, Belgium after three years in North America. From now to the end of 2005 it will be hosted by the European Foundation Centre.

WINGS has been based at the Council on Foundations in Washington DC while its community foundation network, WINGS-CF, has been hosted by Community Foundations of Canada (CFC). Both have been empowering and supportive hosts. The transition to Brussels also means staff change. Jayne Millar Wood, WINGS’ first Director, has been replaced by Gaynor Humphreys, previously Director of Community Foundation Network in the UK, who will soon start to appoint other staff for the current three-year ‘project’.

The core principles of WINGS and WINGS-CF remain in place: it is a network of grantmaker associations and support organizations that are encouraged to learn from each other and share experience, practice and material. WINGS also plans to map trends in the growth and development of philanthropy and to bring the experience of countries where philanthropy is well supported to less enabling environments.

CFC will continue with two projects: the updating of the 2000 report The Growth of Community Foundations Around the World, to be launched in March 2003, and the initial planning for a Global Forum and Research Symposium for community foundations. This will be held in December 2004 in partnership with the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR). Though it will be modest in size, the Forum’s purpose is global exchange of experience between practitioners. The need for serious academic research in the community foundation field is the driving force behind it. For more information, contact Dagne Forrest at dforrest@community-fdn.ca.

WINGS website is now available in Spanish as well as English.

WINGS Director Gaynor Humphreys can be contacted at gaynor@efc.be

For more information
http://www.wingsweb.org
http://www.wingsweb.org/spanish