Thematic Conference Tracks

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 

7:30 AM - 8:45 AM  |   Breakfast & Registration

Ad Hoc Discussions – Please visit the program guide insert for ad hoc descriptions and locations


8:00 AM - 9:00 AM  |   Special Breakfast Sessions

Active Owners Breakfast | Secrets in the Islands: Predatory Money in the Caribbean
Organized with The Ocean Foundation and the Active Owners Steering Committee

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Predatory money is hidden in offshore accounts across the Caribbean. Among these types of holdings, hedge funds count foundations, endowments, foreign governments, and central banks as part of their clientele. Perhaps unwitting to investors, some have speculated in Puerto Rico’s debt and forced policy changes in their financial favor. As just one example, the bet against Puerto Rico cost lives. This panel will explore these dangerously damaging practices and what investors can do to protect their values and bring dark money to light.

Speakers:

  • Mark Spalding, President, Ocean Foundation and Confluence Board Chair (moderator)

  • Myrna Rivera, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Consultiva Internacional Inc. (“Consultiva”)

  • Edward Tillinghast, Board Member , Ocean Foundation

Racial Equity Breakfast
Organized with California Wellness Foundation

What are the challenges and opportunities for advancing racial equity in the investment industry? After a brief update about Confluence’s Racial Equity Initiative, participants will hear from leaders in the field about their vision for implementing racial equity strategies. Organizational leadership will discuss the unique role that Confluence can play in advancing this work. Provocative questions will be posed to attendees and brief Q&A will close out the session, with the hope of building energy and momentum for this important work throughout the gathering and the field.

Speakers:

  • Fatima Angeles, Vice President of Programs, California Wellness Foundation (Moderator)

  • Cynthia Muller, Director of Mission Investment, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

  • Millard “Mitty” Owens, Program Director, Confluence Philanthropy


9:10 AM  | Welcome

Mark Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation and Chair, Confluence Board of Directors

Dr. Nelson Colon, President, Puerto Rico Community Foundation

9:30 AM - 10:45 AM | Plenary Session

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Using Systems Thinking to Embrace the Whole
Organized with Climate Interactive and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

Many would say that the challenges that we face today are a function of system failures. Poor political leadership, the economy, corporate governance, high personal debt, race relations, international trade, and un-controllable weather events… Whew! Sometimes we fixate upon parts of the system and miss the whole. How can impact investors hold more of a systems view when making a simple investment decision? In this session, we will hear from systems modelers about how we can use systems thinking to craft holistic approaches to the multitude and magnitude of the questions that we grapple with. Crisis is both challenge and opportunity. How can we steer toward goal like justice, equity, and a stable climate amidst all this complexity?

Flashtalk by Dr. Elizabeth Sawin, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Climate Interactive

Panel Speakers:

  • Santhosh Ramdoss, Principal, Skoll Foundation (Moderator)

  • Rachel Payne, Managing Director, FullCycle, and Founder, The Tree Pledge

  • Dr. Elizabeth Sawin, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Climate Interactive

  • Erica Barbosa Vargas, Director of Solutions Finance, McConnell Foundation


10:45 AM – 11:00 AM  |   Break

11:00 AM – 11:15 AM  |   Flashtalk with Paul Dickinson, Executive Chair, CDP Worldwide


11:15 AM – 12:00 PM  |   Community Reflections

Join us for Confluence Member reflections on the field in an open-forum sharing session led by David Estrada, Confluence Managing Director, Dana Lanza, Confluence CEO, and Mark Spalding, Confluence Board Chair.


12:00 – 1:00 PM  |  Lunch

1:00 – 2:00 PM  |  Membership Meeting (Members Only)

In keeping with the call to respond to the Decisive Decade, Confluence will unveil a refreshed mission statement at this year’s Gathering. Join the Board of Directors to hear the call to action and to learn about how you can support our new focus areas and share your ideas to influence emerging program strategies. Discussion will be led by Confluence Board Members Dan Chu and Stacey Faella.


2:15 PM – 3:30 PM  |  Concurrent Interactive Sessions (Choose one)

As we celebrate our 10-year Anniversary, this is an opportunity to meaningfully engage with one another about the most pressing issues of our time. Interactive Sessions are intended to serve as a means to strategically utilize the expertise and partnership of those in attendance, and are designed as a small group discussion rather than formal presentation. Participants will collaborate with the facilitators and other attendees in a variety of interactive formats. These sessions will be for delegate attendees only in an effort to create a safe space to speak honestly and openly about the challenges and opportunities we face, all while fostering community among Confluence members.

Decarbonizing Financial Lending
Organized with William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Amalgamated Bank

In order to avoid a temperature rise above 2° over pre-industrial levels and meet the goals outlined in the Paris Accord, we need to slash carbon emissions by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030. To get there, we need to significantly shift the financing away from carbon intensive industries (such as coal, oil and gas, internal combustion engine vehicles, and non-regenerative agriculture) and towards climate solutions. Join the session to learn about how we can drive this change and the important implications of carbon-free banking for an asset owner. 

Speakers:

  • Ivan Frishberg, Director, Impact Policy, Amalgamated Bank & Confluence Board Member

  • Marilyn Waite, Climate Fiance Program Officer, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

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Money Psychology + Family Philanthropy
Organized with Penney Family Fund and Abacus Wealth Partners

Join members of the Penney Family Fund and impact advisor & author Brent Kessel for a real-world case study of how our biases and beliefs around wealth, giving, safety, and investing influence our effectiveness and communications. Using the framework of Brent's eight financial archetypes, participants will learn what their dominant financial tendencies are, where they most influence their actions, and how to cultivate a more aligned impact strategy with a spouse, family members or organizational colleagues. This session will be highly interactive, including the Penney family sharing how they've navigated this terrain in the past, exercises (bring your phone or tablet), and Q&A with audience members. 

Speakers:

  • Brent Kessel, Founder & CEO, Abacus Wealth Partners

  • Jordan Keny-Guyer, Trustee, Penney Family Fund

  • Sarah Malachowsky, Trustee and President, Penney Family Fund

  • Diana Trump, Trustee, Penney Family Fund and Confluence Board Member

Evolving the ESG and Impact Conversation: What Must Change in How Allocators of Capital Make Decisions
Organized with Development Capital Strategies and Surdna Foundation

To date, existing ESG and impact metrics frameworks focus primarily on companies. However, practices at the fund manager level can undermine positive impacts at the portfolio level. To reduce systemic market and societal risks such as income inequality and climate change, asset owners need to take a holistic view of investment approaches. This means not only focusing on the portfolio companies to which they're exposed, but also the ways these investments are structured and managed. For instance, high compensation for large alternative asset managers can exacerbate systemic wealth inequality. Funds and companies domiciled in tax havens can have negative development implications for the economies where they generate most of their profit. In private markets, deal structure can push significant risk onto workers and communities. This workshop aims to explore such issues in more depth. Discussion will also include whether there should be ESG and impact frameworks developed for asset manager structures, and if so, what next steps might look like.

Speakers:

  • Delilah Rothenberg, Founder, Development Capital Strategies

  • Shuaib Siddiqui, Director, Impact Investing, Surdna Foundation

Small but Mighty
Organized with Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and Sapelo Foundation

Small foundations (less than $250 million in assets) serving predominantly rural and small urban areas recognize that investing in their communities looks different than in large cities. These areas are full of need: over 80% of persistent poverty counties are rural. But that's not the whole story. Rich culture, tenacity, and a strong commitment to places permeates such locales. So, how do foundations do this work? Join us to explore how we are learning to work effectively within these communities. Come prepared to share your own struggles and victories, your expertise and burning questions, as we talk together about how to do this work in the places we call Home.

Speakers:

  • Andrea Dobson, Chief Operating & Financial Officer, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

  • Christine Reeves Strigaro, Executive Director, Sapelo Foundation

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It Takes an Ecosystem: Building a More Inclusive and Resilient Local Economy
Organized with Sunwealth Power

Forget about “It takes a village”—if we want to tackle big, audacious goals like reducing the racial wealth gap and building a more inclusive and resilient local economy, we need a whole ecosystem of players doing their part. From activists and incubators to organizers and influencers, to investors and implementors, we all have at least one role to play in driving change. Using Practitioners’ experiences as the background we discuss how organizations are working together to build a more regenerative economy. Leave with a plan about how to identify and activate allies in your own community in radical new ways.

Speakers:

  • Jessica Brooks, Chief Development Officer, Sunwealth Power

  • Ivy Jack, Head of Equity Research, NorthStar Asset Management

  • Mark Watson, Managing Director, Fair Food Fund

Total Portfolio Activation, Now What?!
Organized with Tiedemann Advisors and The Russell Family Foundation

If investing is a journey, not a destination, what happens after you’ve gone “all in?" This intimate and interactive session will bring asset owners together for a generative conversation about truly achieving a fully activated portfolio. How can this community continue to inspire, empower, and engage leading investors to remain at the forefront of this evolving field? Bringing together a small group of advisors and dedicated investors, we offer candid conversation aimed at overcoming potential fatigue and pursuing evolution in a rapidly growing field. To get the most out of this session, attendees are encouraged to actively participate in the discussion by sharing about their portfolios as well as successes and challenges.

Speakers:

  • Dan Chu, Executive Director, Sierra Club Foundation, and Confluence Board Member

  • Brad Harrison, Director, Tiedemann Advisors

  • Timothy P. O’Donnell, CAIA- Senior Vice President, FEG Investment Advisors

  • Kathleen Simpson, CFO & Interim CEO, The Russell Family Foundation and Confluence Board Member

Gender Lens and LGBTQ Investing: Two Lenses, One Vision
Organized with Cornerstone Capital Group

Bias and discrimination toward LGBTQ people is, in part, related to gender and the normative expectations of gender. Recognizing the intersection between gender discrimination and LGBTQ equality results in a profound reorientation of how investors can approach companies and challenge attitudes around full inclusion. How can gender-lens investors take a more expansive view on gender and develop shareholder engagement strategies that are more inclusive, and in so doing, widen the aperture to include everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity?

Speakers:

  • Katherine Pease, Managing Director, Head of Impact Strategy, Cornerstone Capital Group

  • Heidi Vanni, Managing Director, Boston Trust Walden Company

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Intentionality and Social Equity Investing
Organized with Global Endowment Management

As more foundations invest with a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) lens, investors are eager to hear strategies and lessons learned from peers about what's working, and not working, in this area. This session will convene a group of DEI practitioners who can share their lessons learned, hard-won experiences, and brainstorm best practices in group discussion.

Speakers:

  • Shawn Escoffery, Executive Director, Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation

  • Meredith Heimburger, Director of Impact, Global Endowment Management (GEM)

  • Rachel Robasciotti, Principal & Wealth Manager, Robasciotti and Philipson

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Empowering Gatekeepers to Unlock Capital
Organized with Bonwood Foundation

In group discussion we will identify the barriers to values aligned movement of money with brainstorm and role play. There are no wrong answers! Next, we will imagine how we lower those barriers to create a marketplace where asset owners readily participate as empowered investors. Then, stepping forward into pragmatic action we will identify ways in which we can work with partners to bring this vision to life.

Speakers:

  • Catherine Burnett, Chief Impact Officer, Phillips Foundation

  • Matt Patsky, CEO, Trillium Asset Management

  • Eric Stephenson, Director of Client Service, Align Impact


3:30 PM – 5:30 PM  |  Free Time

Optional Working Group Meetings & Workshops

Please see your program insert for side events information

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM | Book Fair – Foyer

Join us for refreshments, pick up a book, and have it autographed by thought-leading authors from the Confluence community. Special Session: Moving from Intent to 100% Impact – Terrace

Special Session: Moving from Intent to 100% Impact – Terrace

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM   |  Gather for the Gala

Light Refreshments to be Served


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6:00 PM – 10:00 PM  |  Evening Plenary

Love and Resilience in the Decisive Decade
Organized with the Hip Hop Caucus

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Join us for a unique evening discussion that captures the spirit of revolution amidst growing global, grassroots movements for sustainability and justice. Whether Divest Invest, Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, or Fridays for the Future, social campaigns are often the first to shine a light on inequity or environmental abuse, raising awareness and inspiring others to join in demanding a meaningful response from the private and public sectors. Investors and philanthropists are uniquely positioned to bolster social, economic, and political movements by leveraging capital and influence to support transformative change. This special evening event will explore and honor the significant role that civil society movements play in shaping the emergent environmental and economic narratives of this critical era. How we can support them?

Opening Remarks | Gabe Gonzalez, Writer and Comedian

Keynote | Luis Miranda Jr, Founding Partner, the MirRam Group, and Philanthropist

Panel Conversation

  • Luis Miranda Jr, Founding Partner, the MirRam Group, and Philanthropist (Moderator)

  • May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org

  • Gabe Gonzalez, Writer and Comedian

  • Christine Nieves, Co-founder and President, Emerge Puerto Rico

  • Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., President and CEO of the, Hip Hop Caucus

  • Special Message from Bill McKibben, Co-founder and Senior Advisor, 350.org

7:30 PM – 10:00 PM  |  Networking Dinner and Salsa Party