The most significant challenges facing society today are complex and interdisciplinary, requiring long-term solutions, collaborations, and bold new ideas. Planetary health and climate change, rapidly advancing technologies, massive demographic shifts, economic inequality and poverty, fast-growing urban communities, and changes to our systems of education and employment necessitate new investments by public and private sector groups working together. As transnational challenges multiply, philanthropy and investment are at an important crossroads.

Philanthropists, impact investors, and social investors are already working with government policymakers, the corporate sector, and civil society groups around the world to better understand how to shift capital flows for radically more effective social impact, developing new approaches to philanthropy that combine innovations and approaches from across sectors and investment models. As innovative social investing approaches continue to emerge, there are new opportunities to understand global trends; enhance cross border, collaborative exchange; and compare philanthropic and impact investing models across disciplines and institutions. 

As an increasing number of foundations move beyond traditional grant making and experiment with innovations in social investing, including social impact bonds, collaborative philanthropy, and impact investment funds, the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network and Salzburg Global Seminar will convene a globally diverse group of foundations and social investors to exchange strategies for addressing global challenges, enhancing collaboration, exploring effective talent management approaches, and offering greater opportunities for investments that offer longer-term and deeper opportunities for impact. The program will include individuals and organizations from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, and will be designed to highlight new approaches to generate impact in line with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. 

The program – part of the long-running Salzburg Global series on Philanthropy and Social Investment – will combine plenary discussions and small-group workshops to inspire, equip, and enable participants to develop commitments to action, take back practical lessons and toolkits, and apply them to their own organizations.