A little quiet lately as about to embark on some professional development at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society. They run a Senior (as in old(er)) International Fellows Program for people in the community foundations sector and take only 6 or 7 participants each year (all from outside the US), so I will be joined by colleagues with vast and varied experience from Bermuda, Italy, Czech Republic, South Africa, India and New Zealand.
It’s four weeks of seminars, site visits to not for profits and philanthropic leaders here, as well as the development of a paper which will hopefully be relevant and useful to our own organisations. I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime – there are a couple of things happening you should try to get along to – such as Kevin Murphy (who will be the keynote speaker at the Philanthropy Australia AGM on 16 April) – from the Council on Foundations and president of the Berks County Community Foundation, but will also be speaking at an event hosted by the Australian Communities Foundation at Macquarie 101 Collins Street Melbourne on 16 April at 6pm, on Global Giving and the Australian Leadership Challenge:Global Trends, Local Challenges, Better Giving – together with another international guest speaker Roberta d’Eustachio of Ambassadors for Philanthropy, Hosted by Simon McKeon AO, Executive Chairman, Macquarie Group, Melbourne. RSVP to Australian Communities Foundation.
Another event which may be of interest is being hosted by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation in early May and of course, not being at my desk -I don’t have the details on me. It’s not the Lady Mayoress’ Garden Party – so if you think you want to find out more, give them a hoy to ask about it (even if I suspect it might be invitation only).
That’s all for now,
Let me know if things are coming up which might be of interest to others and I will endeavour to record them.
best
Sharon
ozphilanthropy 
Congrats on the Fellows opportunity Sharon!
Wonderful.
Being Czech born I will be all ears re the Czech experience from their candidate.
Best,
Ivana
Hi Ivana,
thanks for this – I will pay special attention to my Czech colleague who runs the Development of Philanthropy programme at the VIA Foundation and their Endowment Campaign.
You might also be interested in George Soros‘ philanthropy in relation to Open Societies in Eastern Europe since the late 80s.
My very brief capture of the Czech experience from what I heard today is that there is a great deal of diaspora giving from Czech people outside the country and a renewed interest in giving from young entrepreneurs who have done well in information technology (and by young I have been given to understand – very wealthy in their early to mid 40s).
best
Sharon