Our Common Future Conference – Oct. 27, 2017  Part One

Our Common Future conference was held in Detroit, Michigan at the end of October 2017. We have a Part One and a Part Two to give you the top ten.  We will interview several guest speakers that help shape our community. They give us some insight into the work that they do to empower entrepreneurship and Impact Investing.

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Welcome to the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. This is Romy, and we have something very special for you on this episode. Our Bonfires team was invited to podcast from the Our Common Futures conference which was held in Detroit at the end of October 2017. I was not able to attend but two of our very experienced colleagues, Jennifer Davis-Papa and Natalie Hazen, caught up with some very high profile attendees and speakers at the conference. They came back with so many great discussions that we had to do a Part 1 and a Part 2 to give you the top ten.
So, on Part 1, you will hear interviews with Dan Cardinali, President, and CEO of Independent Sector, Joyce Cade-Hitchye from the organization, Of Impact, Angela Barbash from the financial firm, Revalue Aaron Seybert of Kresge, and Angela Rogensues of the non-profit, Playworks.
Let’s get started with Dan Cardinelli of Independent Sector. He begins by answering Natalie with some organization history.

Dan Cardinali: Well, first of all, Independent Sector is a 38-year-old organization that is founded with two very simple principles; that our goal is to bring the sector, the whole sector together. Grant seeking, foundations, corporate foundations, and ... Excuse me. Can I start that again?

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Dan Cardinali: Independent Sector was founded 38 years ago with two very simple purposes; to bring the sector together, sector spanning, so we have grant seeking organizations, nonprofits, and grant-making organizations like philanthropy and corporate foundations.

The goal of this gathering is for the community to come together in a non-transactional way. Not to cut deals, but to collectively take stock in what's going well and what's not, and how we as a sector can come together, catalyze activity, and be part of accelerating social change. That's what Independent Sector does.

And then we learn from that conversation, and we translate that into our public policy work. Primarily in Washington, but increasingly we partner with state organizations to make sure we're aligned with the policies that are really going to strengthen the sector.

Every year we gather, historically every year we gather the sector together in this vital meeting ground, this conference. We realize collaboration is the way of the future. Early on as were designing for this, we said, "Look, who are the strongest sector spanning organizations we can partner with." The Council of Michigan Foundations is one of the strongest state level, regional association working in philanthropy. The Michigan Nonprofit Association is a similar; it's one of the strongest nonprofit association.

It made perfect sense to say, "Hey! Let's put our heads together, and let's design together." And that's what we did. It's been a phenomenal experience.

Natalie: Wow. That's fantastic. I like how you're getting everybody together in the sandbox to play well together, in essence.

Dan Cardinali: Right. Well, the goal I think is playing well together. I think also means struggling to do what we hope happens here. Which is to push...