We came back from summer welcoming the Magic Cabinet Foundation to our membership initiative! Also, this month we explored and reflected on the experiences and the value that came with the development of communities of practice. 

The launch of our third and fourth episode of Somos Filantropía Podcast came with this philanthropic practice in the scope of the conversation. On one hand, Karla Vargas, our Strategic Initiatives Officer, explained the composition and particularities of the communities of practices and pointed out some experiences around our Robusteciendo la justicia social multi-annual community of practice. On the other hand, we shared with Alexandra Hertell, executive director of Fundación Segarra Boerman who explained their strategy of “Trust Based Philanthropy” that also includes communities of practice in their philanthropic approaches. 

Furthermore, Alexandra and her team hosted our fourth Members Brunch of the year. During this relationship building event, we immersed ourselves in their practices aimed at “Trust Based Philanthropy”. This conversation let us reflect as a collective about the possibilities in our organizations. Alexandra mentioned, “In the systems we navigate, power imbalances exist and we must acknowledge this. Trust is cultivated; it’s not an automatic given. While we may intend to prioritize communities’, there are practices within philanthropy that can put up more barriers”.

Also, during our monthly Action dialogue we continued exploring philanthropic practices to understand where we stand as an ecosystem. It is important for us that in these strategy building events we focus on filling gaps and inspire conversations for collective alignment. During this session we also brought the topic of communities of practice to discuss. Fundación Segarra Boerman, one of our members, presented their two communities of practice named El avispero and Unidxs por el ambiente. We know that facilitating these spaces takes time and resources but are part of the practices we can use to share power and collaborate with other peers in the decision making process.

Otherwise, we continued exploring diverse perspectives of equity in the social ecosystem. During the conversation: “Transformando la noción de seguridad pública” with Tania Rosario from Taller Salud and Mari Mari Narváez from Kilómetro 0, we approached the relevance of public security and its redefinition to mobilize systemic changes in Puerto Rico. Tania mentioned that “las personas nombran sus nociones de seguridad pública enmarcadas en vivienda digna, alimentos, empleo digno, educación. La gente cuando piensa en seguridad, piensa en su familia, en compartir en espacios donde haya violencia. No piensan en tribunales, cárceles ni policías. Todo esto son narrativas creadas”. 

Finally, during this month we presented the new Puerto Rico Solar+Renewable Landscape, as part of our initiative to raise and sustain data collection that supports all the social ecosystem. We hope that this new tool can spur conversations about the ecosystem, its current direction, investments and recommendations for capacity development, gaps and the best role for philanthropy to play moving forward in this worldwide issue.