GPF Connect empowers

Your private online community designed to enhance networking and knowledge sharing during the conference and year round.

GPF Connect empowers you to:

Find peers with shared interests
Form groups around issues of your choice
Find and forge co-funding partnerships
Connect ahead of time around conference themes
Sign up to lead a breakfast discussion table

Participating in GPF Connect is easy, private, and secure. Other members can view the profile information you supply, but they will never know your name, e-mail address, or any other contact information - until you share it with them.

Celebrating 10 Years with a Look at "Turning Points..."

Videos of select sessions from the 2011 conference will soon be available on the 2011 Highlights page.

The Global Philanthropy Forum aims to build a community of donors and social investors committed to international causes, and to inform, enable and enhance the strategic nature of their giving and social investing.

By continually refreshing a lasting learning community, the GPF seeks to increase the number of philanthropists who will be strategic in pursuit of international causes. We share a conviction that individuals are not only capable of advancing human security, environmental stewardship, and improved quality of life, but that they must.

Global Philanthropy

Global Philanthropy Forum 10th Annual Conference

Ten years ago we gathered, and asked:
What role can private wealth play in financing the public good? This was the question before us in 2001 when the GPF was born.

Ten Years Hence...
An Aspiration then, "New Philanthropy" is a Force for and Face of Change Today. Key leaders like Bill & Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, John and Tasha Morgridge, Jeff Skoll, Pierre and Pam Omidyar and other "new philanthropists" have set an example for us all. The members and early founders of the GPF have given "new philanthropy" operational meaning, testing novel approaches and infusing philanthropy with the same creative and experimental zest they brought to private enterprise.

The Options have Expanded, Philanthropy is Transformed. Our members were bold enough to define philanthropy broadly to encompass all private means of financing positive social change, a definition that allowed them not only to explore but to expand the options and more fully align their assets with their intentions.

Prior Topics for GPF Discussion are now Drivers of Philanthropy. Social investing, a topic at the first GPF conference, is now a growing industry and an oft-chosen complement to grant-making. Cross-sectoral partnerships, the topic of our third conference, are now well-travelled paths. Our 2007 focus was on market-based solutions, which are now proliferating, gaining traction and blurring the lines between the commercial and philanthropic sectors. Similarly, leverage has become our members' focus. And as engaged donors our members are rigorous in their pursuit of results. Their search for the optimal system of monitoring and evaluation may drive a new consensus - one we will discuss and apply in the years ahead.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, and - still questioning, still aspiring -- we will take stock. What are the new fundamentals of philanthropy that have enabled success? What has worked and what has not? Which changes were fads; which are now facts of life? What are the remaining gaps - and how will we fill them?

And when we sense a problem at a turning point, a solution near at hand, we will act. Philanthropy, now unbound, finds new opportunities for impact. Which issues and actors are at an inflection point? What are the game changers? And will we act now so as to change the nature of tomorrow?

These are the questions we will address at the 10th Annual Conference. Please join us to take part in this conversation, this celebration, this inquiry.

The Global Philanthropy Forum Conference is intended for individuals who have made a significant commitment to philanthropy, and executives from private, public, and corporate foundations. Participation in the conference is by invitation only, and invitations are not transferrable.

Elderly

Old age consists of ages nearing or surpassing the average life span of human beings, and thus the end of the human life cycle. Euphemisms and terms for old people include seniors (American usage), Senior Citizens (British and American usage), or the elderly. As occurs with almost any definable group of humanity, some people will hold a prejudice against others — in this case, against old people. This is one form of ageism.
Old people have limited regenerative abilities and are more prone to disease, syndromes, and sickness than other adults. For the biology of ageing, see senescence. The medical study of the aging process is gerontology, and the study of diseases that afflict the elderly is geriatrics.

Substance Abuse & Children

Inpatient admission rates and average length of stay for children of alcoholics are 24% and 29% greater than for children of non-alcoholic parents. Substance abuse and other mental disorders are the most notable conditions among children of addicted parents.
Children of addicted parents are more at risk for alcoholism and drug abuse even if they are adopted and raised apart from their biological parents.
Three of four (71.6%) child welfare professionals cite substance abuse as the top cause for the dramatic rise in child maltreatment since 1986. Most welfare professionals (79.6%) report that substance abuse causes or contributes to at least half of all cases of child maltreatment; 39.7% say it's a factor in over 75% of the cases.
Parental substance abuse and addiction are the chief cause in at least 70-90% of all child welfare spending. Using the more conservative 70 percent figure, in 1998 substance abuse and addiction accounted for approximately $10 billion in federal, state and local government spending simply to maintain child welfare systems.

Simplicity

Simplicity is being simple. It is a property, condition, or quality which things can be judged to have. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated. In some uses, simplicity can be used to imply beauty, purity or clarity. Simplicity may also be used in a negative connotation to denote a deficit or insufficiency of nuance or complexity of a thing, relative to what is supposed to be required.
The concept of simplicity has been related to truth in the field of epistemology. According to Occam's razor, all other things being equal, the simplest theory is the most likely to be true. In the context of human lifestyle, simplicity can denote freedom from hardship, effort or confusion. Specifically, it can refer to a simple living lifestyle.
Simplicity is a theme in the Christian religion. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, God is infinitely simple. The Roman Catholic and Anglican religious orders of Franciscans also strive after simplicity. Members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) practice the Testimony of Simplicity, which is the simplifying of one's life in order to focus on things that are most important and disregard or avoid things that are least important.
In MCS cognition theory, simplicity is the property of a domain which requires very little information to be exhaustively described. The opposite of simplicity is complexity.

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail (or gaol), although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility. Prisons are conventionally institutions which form part of the criminal justice system of a country, such that imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime.
A criminal suspect who has been charged with or is likely to be charged with criminal offense may be held on remand in prison if he is denied or unable to meet conditions of bail, or is unable or unwilling to post bail. A criminal defendant may also be held in prison while awaiting trial or a trial verdict. If found guilty, a defendant will be convicted and may receive a custodial sentence requiring imprisonment.
As well as convicted or suspected criminals, prisons may be used for internment of those not charged with a crime. Prisons may also be used as a tool of political repression to detain political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and "enemies of the state", particularly by authoritarian regimes. In times of war or conflict, prisoners of war may also be detained in prisons. A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons, and depending on their nature, may invoke a corrections system. Although people have been imprisoned throughout history, they have also regularly been able to perform prison escapes.

Censorship

According to Webster's Dictionary, to "censor" means "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable." The word "censor" originated in ancient Rome, where the government appointed officials to take the census and to supervise public morals. Censorship happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their political or moral values on others by suppressing words, images, or ideas that they find offensive.
A censor, traditionally, is an official whose job it is to examine literature, movies, or other forms of creative expression and to remove or ban anything she considers unsuitable. In this definition, censorship is something the government does. But censorship can also be accomplished very effectively by private groups.
Not all forms of censorship are illegal. When private individuals agitate to eliminate TV programs they dislike, or threaten to boycott the companies that support those programs with advertising dollars, they are certainly trying to censor artistic expression and interfere with the free speech of others. But their actions are perfectly legal; in fact, their protests are protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
Not even all government censorship is unlawful. For example, we still have laws against "obscenity" in art and entertainment. These laws allow the government to punish people for producing or disseminating material about sex, if a judge or jury thinks the material is sufficiently offensive and lacks any "serious value."