Grantmakers Without Borders (Gw/oB) is extremely pleased to be joining the Alliance family of contributors with this first article in what will be a regular column. We look forward to sharing news and analysis from our network of global social justice grantmakers.

A cornerstone of US global engagement today is the so-called ‘Bush Doctrine’, the foreign policy principle that the US should act preemptively to prevent potential future strikes on US targets. This unprecedented and extremely controversial policy is behind the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq. The impact of this Doctrine on grassroots communities around the world will be one of the many topics discussed at Gw/oB’s upcoming conference, ‘Global Policy, Grassroots Change’. In some 30 different workshops, participants will look at the many faces of US policy – military, cultural, economic – and what these policies mean at the local level.

Equally critically, the conference will explore the impact of the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and other formulators of neo-liberal economic policy, whose multi-billion-dollar funding agendas affect everything from resource rights to global warming. Grassroots communities around the globe are finding creative and often very effective ways to respond to these outside forces, and many of these alternatives will be highlighted at the conference.

Through this gathering, Gw/oB also hopes to provide grantmakers and donors with new information and new analytical tools to help guide them in their social change grantmaking.

The conference will convene in Miami, Florida from 14 to 16 October 2004 and is open to public and private grantmaking entities and to individuals with a significant philanthropic commitment to social justice. Grantmakers Without Borders extends a warm invitation to Alliance readers representing grantmaking entities to join us at this, our fourth annual conference.

For more information about Gw/oB and about its 2004 conference, contact Executive Director John Harvey at gwob@att.net

Grantmakers Without Borders
PO Box 181282, Boston, MA 02118, USA
Tel +1 617 794-2253
Email gwob@att.net
Website http://www.InternationalDonors.org and http://www.gwob.net