Over the past few years, the Festival has grown into one of the largest collective learning spaces for funders in the UK, bringing together more than 2,000 people from funding organisations across over 100 sessions. At its heart, it is a space for funders and partners to think together not just about what they fund, but how they fund, and whether the sector as a whole is doing enough to support communities at this moment of change.
This year's Festival is built around three questions that have emerged repeatedly across our network of funders, practitioners and community organisations - questions that feel urgent, interconnected and that no single funder can answer on their own.
What does it take to strengthen justice, solidarity and social cohesion at a time of rising division, economic uncertainty and declining trust? How do we build genuine community wealth and power in a new age of devolution? And how do we create a funding ecosystem that is more connected, data-driven and collectively responsive to what communities need?
By organising the programme around these questions rather than a broad range of topics, we want to create a Festival that moves beyond sharing ideas and practice toward developing something more durable: a stronger, more coherent understanding of what funders need to do differently in the years ahead.
Across two weeks, the Festival brings together panels, workshops, online sessions, place-based visits, film screenings, escape rooms and networking - a two-week programme designed to inform, challenge and connect.
Each strand is designed as a connected learning journey, with sessions that build on one another and move from insight toward action. But you're also welcome to follow a full strand or build your own programme around the sessions most relevant to your work. However you engage with it, the Festival is designed to inform, challenge and connect.