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Dear Friends,
It’s been a minute. The world hasn’t slowed down, and neither have we. This edition is a bit of a feast: Our Wayfinder is back and it’s headed to Nairobi (mark November 5&6th). Plus, we’ve got some reading, listening and watching that’s been stopping us mid-scroll. There’s also a blood pressure warning on one of the philanthropy pieces. You’ll know it when you get there!
Wayfinder Nairobi
Our Wayfinder is back. We first convened as a community in 2017. The action required then feels more alive – and even more urgent – now.
This November in Nairobi, we’re bringing together people who believe social innovation – rooted in community, driven by those closest to the challenges – is one of the most powerful forces we have. This workshop-led event (no panels here) will bring together individuals who know how to move together, and fast.
This year we’re doing something different in the run-up. Before you arrive, we’ll ask you to craft a shift statement – one sentence that captures the change you’re working toward and why now. It goes on your badge instead of your job title. In our experience, and it makes for a very different quality of conversation when you walk into the room.
We’ll be running webinars in the run-up – more on those soon.
Ready?
SI Mission Facility
A powerful question opened our Brussels convening in May: what is money actually for? As part of the European SI Mission Facility, we brought funders and impact investors together to ask whether the capital stack can be redesigned to fit social innovation – rather than the other way around. Spoiler: the redesign is very much a work in progress. [Read our reflections →]
We’re running a lab this November for funders and investors who want to work through the hard questions without rushing to resolution. Interested? Email: events@socialinnovationexchange.org
If you are a social innovator: open call to participate in the SIMF Training and Scaling Lab, starting in autumn 2026. [Register your interest here →]
Ecosystem pulse check
Last newsletter we sent out this Ecosystem survey (now renamed to a more friendly pulse check) and we asked our community a simple question:
Where does the ecosystem most need strengthening?
The answers were honest, sometimes uncomfortable, and entirely consistent. From Brazil to Canada to India to Spain, the same tensions surfaced: funding that is too rigid, too short and too far removed from community reality; a sector exhausted by “pilotitis” – endless pilots, limited scale; and a quiet frustration with a system that celebrates the novelty of innovation while protecting the legacy structures that most need dismantling.
One respondent from Brazil put it plainly: “We are tired of hearing overly optimistic rhetoric that is out of touch with the reality our sector is facing. Despite this, we press on.” That spirit – clear-eyed, determined, still moving – is exactly the spirit of our Wayfinder Nairobi.
Given the insight from last time, we thought we’d ask again: four minutes, four questions. [Tell us what you think →]
What gets seen, gets funded
The social innovation sector arguably doesn’t have an ideas problem. It has a visibility problem. Here are resources worth bookmarking:
Social Innovation Engine → An open-access platform of verified social innovations, searchable by challenge and region. No paywall, no account required.
Apolitical’s Edge 50 2026 is worth a bookmark. The world’s most innovative public sector initiatives [Explore →]
🗺️ Also worth an explore is the ChangemakerXchange Changemakers map, which highlights global social innovations and initiatives.
👉 We’re pulling together a wider map of databases and directories like these — with a deliberate Global South lens. Know one we should add? Get in touch here.
News from our network
Our friend Rhodri Davies asks a deceptively simple question in his latest podcast: what does it actually mean to be good at philanthropy? His guest Jen Ford Reedy, President of the Bush Foundation, has some honest answers. In a moment when philanthropy is being talked about as a civilisational force, this is a useful reality check. [Listen →]
Is a third wave of philanthropy coming – funded by AI wealth and built like Silicon Valley? Nan Ransohoff thinks so. Forbes thinks it might not be enough. We’d add one question: will any of it reach the communities that need it most? [Read →]
Speaking of philanthropy – this one comes with a blood pressure warning. By 2023, nine of the top 20 US charities were donor-advised fund sponsors collecting over $41 billion. The money is technically donated, the donor gets the tax break – and then it sits. Indefinitely. No legal obligation to reach anyone doing actual work. The US isn’t alone: the UK, Canada, Australia and parts of Europe are all seeing DAF growth. The reservoir is filling. The pipes remain narrow and optional. [Read →]
WINGS’ latest policy brief contains a number we found worrying: 80% of global expenditure on philanthropy support organisations is invested in North America. The infrastructure connecting capital to community barely exists in the Global South. That’s not a funding gap. That’s a structural failure. [Read →]
If you’re building a community – a network, a cohort, a movement – the Community Canvas is a free framework worth downloading. Seventeen themes, fifteen languages, and a decade of practice behind it. Practical ecosystem building, no fluff. [Explore →]
The finance system isn’t broken — it’s doing exactly what it was built to do. That’s the provocation behind Brave New Capital by Aunnie Patton Power and Erinch Sahan. Hear them in conversation on July 29th. Free, online, one hour. [Register →]
2.18 million social enterprises. $96 billion in revenue. 12 million jobs — half led by women. The WEF’s new State of Social Enterprise report makes the case that Africa’s social enterprises aren’t peripheral to the continent’s future. They are its backbone. [Read →]
Africa doesn’t need more programmes, it needs better pathways. Share your perspective with Africa Forward. [Explore →]
One Acre Fund’s 2025 report is a fabulous example of a scaling social innovation with listening as a strategy, global south as the innovator. 5.9 million farming households across 10 countries, $600 million in impact and it included programming built specifically for new mothers. [Read →]
If you’re still navigating AI largely on your own, this six-week peer learning programme for nonprofit and philanthropic leaders might be exactly what you need. Small cohorts, guided reflection, and people asking the same hard questions. [Find out more →]
Global South practice meeting global research infrastructure = a great example of knowledge exchange. Reap Benefit’s model of turning young Indians into local climate problem-solvers is now being studied by the LSE Behavioural Lab. Eyes on this. 👀
And in Nairobi next week, from the 21-24 July, innovators and other changemakers are coming together for Segal 2026: The Next Beat to explore the future of African philanthropy and social impact.
Book review
Our last newsletter featured Uffe Elbæk’s Doubt, Hope, Action – which contained a historical argument that large-scale social transformation is repeatable, not fantasy.
This time we’re reading the open-source downloadable book: Wicked Problems by Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler. It maps the interlocking crises facing our world with unflinching honesty and asks why dominant systems actively block the people trying to change them. It tackles uncomfortable territory – power, inequality, political failure. But that’s rather the point. If you want something to sharpen your thinking before Nairobi, this could be it.
And if you haven’t yet downloaded our booklet – 15 years of learning, free – shameless plug, we could not resist. [Download →]
Catch the team
We’d love to see you at:
→ OECD Mission Forward, which brings together policymakers, academics and innovators to design and evaluate ways of solving complex societal challenges, 24-25 September in Paris [link]
→ Impact Flock, the annual gathering for venture capitalists and limited partners with an interest in impact, on 18th September in London [link]
→ SI Mission Lab in Lisbon in October. If you are a social innovator, funder or policymaker and interested, get in touch at events@socialinnovationexchange.org.
→ Wayfinder is coming to Nairobi on 5-6 November → Get ahead of the crowds and express your interest now!
We’re always looking for the right partnerships – organisations and individuals who share our belief that the social innovation ecosystem needs strengthening. The system undervalues social infrastructure, social capital and social impact, and that keeps brilliant work fragmented and small. If something in this newsletter sparked a thought, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to info@socialinnovationexchange.org
Thanks for being part of this community. Until next time,
The EdelGive/SIX Team
