BPM Africa 2024 - African Diaspora Network

ADN Black Philanthropy Month 2024

Forward Together: Afro-Futures of Giving - Exploring Innovative Strategies and Solutions in African Diaspora Giving

Date: August 29, 2024 |Time: 8am PDT/11am EDT/3pm GMT | Type: Panel Session | Location: Virtual

Key Participants:

Almaz Negash CEO, African Diaspora Network, and BPM's Africa Chair, Moderator
Thelma Ekiyor Chairperson Nigeria Office for Philanthropy & Impact Investing (NPO)
Kady Sylla Director, Africa, Myriad USA
Dana Francois Program Officer, Haiti, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Purpose:

By celebrating Black Philanthropy Month (BPM), this event offers a unique opportunity to delve into the future of Black giving and community finance, focusing on the African diaspora’s role in supporting initiatives on the continent. It will showcase transformative case studies, emerging trends, and strategic insights, providing practical advice on maximizing philanthropic impact. The event will highlight pioneering examples like the i-philanthropy forum and explore how digital philanthropy and collective giving models shape the future. Moreover, it will underscore the role of community finance and collective action in addressing systemic issues, prompting participants to consider their roles as change agents.

Context:

From its inception, Black Philanthropy Month (BPM), celebrated annually around the globe in August, has focused on harnessing the traditions of giving and community finance within Black communities to empower and create a better future. Afro-futurism has emerged as a cross-sector, interdisciplinary movement that connects history and the present to innovate for a more equitable and just future.

For 2024, BPM is leveraging contemporary Afro-futurism to inspire and co-create a robust future for global Black giving and community finance. Throughout the BPM season, community and sector leaders and allies are encouraged to envision and act upon the ideal future of Black giving. This event takes a deep dive into transnational forms of giving by examining how the global African diaspora gives back to the continent.

For several years, the African Diaspora Network (ADN) has been advancing the concept of going “Beyond Remittances,” which underscores the evolving role of the African diaspora in driving transformational investments. By highlighting diverse forms of diaspora finance, such as philanthropy, impact investing, and community-driven financial models, this event seeks to showcase the significant contributions of the diaspora in fostering sustainable development in Africa. Through this event, ADN aims to promote future-proof models of diaspora giving, engage stakeholders, and promote innovative strategies that unlock the full potential of Black giving, ensuring a lasting impact on the continent’s growth and prosperity.

Almaz Negash is a recognized thought leader and sought-after expert on entrepreneurship, innovation, and investment for international markets, especially high growth African and Diaspora. Leveraging 25 plus years of experience in international trade, business management, and social innovation, Negash is able to build successful partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, including Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions, investors and entrepreneurs based in the USA and around the world. As a result, she is named as one of the 100 outstanding Silicon Valley Women of Influence for her work in social innovation. In 2010, Almaz founded African Diaspora Network (ADN) to inform and engage Africans in the diaspora and facilitate direct collaboration with social entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to invest and improve the lives of everyone on the continent.

Ms. Ekiyor is the co-Founder and former Managing Partner of SME.NG – Nigeria’s Impact Investment Platform, which has set up two impact funds for women entrepreneurs. She is the Co-Founder/Chairperson of Afrigrants, a social enterprise, and served as its pioneering CEO. At Afrigrants, she led the establishment of “Market Women’s Quick Cash” – a financial inclusion solution to provide micro-loans to women in disadvantaged communities, impacting 3000 women in northern and southern states in Nigeria. She also led the conceptualization of “The Ebi Fund” – an impact fund. Ms. Ekiyor is the Founder & Co-Convener of The Funding Space – a mentoring and access to finance platform for social entrepreneurs in Africa, established in 2017.

Kady Sylla is Senior Advisor – Africa at the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS). Kady oversees our Africa partnerships, network-building and programs. Before joining KBFUS, Kady managed grantee relationships, partnerships, strategy development and communications at the Issroff Family Foundation (IFF). At IFF, Kady designed and implemented leadership and organizational capacity strengthening programs, including IFF’s signature “Collaborative Learning Initiative,” and also managed the Tristate Africa Funders Network, a peer learning vehicle. Before IFF, she gained experience managing international development and philanthropic grants, working with public and private institutions like USAID, Open Society Foundations (OSF), and UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Dana François is a LAC Program Officer of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She holds a family economic security portfolio and applies equity, systems-change, and ecosystem-building lenses. She leads several cross-sectoral coalitions of over 130 global actors whose efforts advance economic development, sustainable agricultural production, capital, market access, and food systems for thousands of producers, schoolchildren, entrepreneurs, and small, micro-enterprises and biodiversity as Board Chair for the Haiti Biodiversity Fund. For over 20 years, she has focused on increasing economic and livelihood outcomes through system-change efforts in sustainable agriculture, business, community-led food systems, strategic partnerships, coalition building, philanthropic engagement, and catalyzing capital. Dana is an Innovation Leader of the Babson College Lewis Institute and a NEID Global board governance & DEI chair. At home with family, she enjoys her dog Myra, vegan baking and food photography