In 2024 ERNOP hosted and facilitated five in-depth exchanges between academia and philanthropy professionals. The event connected academics with philanthropy professionals, fostered learning from academia and practitioners and created safe spaces in which participants addressed themes that included a high level of trust. The output of the safe spaces will be looped back into research on related topics. The event was organised in collaboration with Philanthropy Europe Association (Philea).

By creating safe spaces for philanthropy, this initiative seeks to partner academics, and professionals working in and for philanthropy. For practitioners it creates an opportunity for peer learning and exchange on topics that are essential to the functioning of philanthropic organisations but often create friction and frustration. Also practitioners are provided with academic reflections to the topics that are on the table – it gives them a way to better understand the processes and possibilities to overcome these frictions,  stay on the top of the most recent research, and connect their daily practice and strategic thinking with research evidence. For academics it provides an opportunity to engage with an in-depth conversation on issues that are of importance to professionals working in the philanthropy sector and to integrate their feedback into their work. The conversations will provide a platform to share knowledge and raise new avenues for innovative research and collaborations.

The event takes into account opportunities and barriers for in-depth exchange among people working in and for philanthropy and academics by an open conversation among key representatives of each participating group. The speakers shared best practices but also shared their learnings from exchanging within and between stakeholders.

We will create an open atmosphere and exchange by facilitating a session that will particularly focus on creating relationships and breaking tensions between people that do not know each other. To make sure that sessions facilitate in-depth exchange, the number of participants that can participate in the event is limited for each space and participants to the event will have to apply for participation by stating in a short motivation why they should participate. Also, before the event, each participant will have to formally agree on the Chatham House Rule: participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

Finally, the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing will publish a special issue of 5 open access ‘Dialogue Papers’ that include academic presentation of state-of-the-art on a given theme with reflections from the practitioners. The ‘Dialogue Papers’ will be written by the academic and practitioner that moderate a safe space. An editorial committee consisting out of representatives from ERNOP, Philea and JPM will facilitate the publication process.

In case you want to stay up to date about this event, please sign up for the ERNOP Mailingslist.

The preliminary program (subject to change) can be found here.