Community foundations: Symposium on a global movement
2 - 4 December 2004
Berlin, Germany
The Symposium was an international gathering of community foundation representatives from around the globe, who met in Berlin in December 2004 to look at the role of community foundations and their impact, worldwide.
The Symposium focused on larger issues and questions for community foundations in a global context, such as:
- the role community foundations play in building community and promoting civil society;
- the effects of local traditions and culture on the structure of community foundations from country to country and region to region; and
- the role of supportive environments in advancing community foundation development, including the role of organizations that support the development of community foundations, and legal and regulatory environments.
A second aim of the Symposium was to promote more academic research on and critical evaluation of community foundation issues. The Symposium broke new ground in inviting academic researchers to participate. Academic papers were integrated into the practitioners' sessions, where appropriate and beneficial, with academics giving their perspectives on practitioners' topics, and practitioners also commenting on academic papers.
