2025 Skoll World Forum Part 2
2025 Skoll World Forum Part 3
By Alliance for Sustainability President Terry Gips
As we face the wiping out of so many policies and institutions that we’ve worked hard to create over decades, is it possible to have a sense of hope in the world? Yes! This isn’t a sugar-coated hope that everything will be fine. It won’t.
This is the hope that is born of people power in the face of assaults on fundamental freedoms, the rule of law and even our Constitution…the loss of homes, jobs and futures for so many…out of control AI and climate devastation…and even the sheer horror of mass starvation and women being raped as a weapon of war in order to mine the minerals we need for our cell phones and renewable energy.
Leaders Confronting the Challenges and Getting Support
The 1500 delegates attending the Skoll World Forum April 1-4 in Oxford, England had to face each of these challenges and many more, yet we emerged hopeful. How? There’s a power in bringing together people with a shared vision and every day, on-the-ground hard work solving humanity’s biggest threats.
Skoll brings these visionary grassroots leaders together from every corner of the planet to share the solutions they have been co-creating with their communities. The Skoll Foundation then seeks to scale their work and impact by supporting them with a strong network and giving its own big funding thanks to the generosity of Jeff Skoll, plus bringing together funders who will further support the work, including leading philanthropists and both small and large foundations like Gates, Ford and MacArthur.
Battling the Intentional Attack Tsunami
When I attended last year, I was deeply moved hearing the story of each nonprofit and how they are somehow overcoming the daunting challenges they face. But this year was completely different as there is a veritable tsunami affecting nearly every nonprofit. In some cases, the Trump administration is seeking to silence them by cutting off their funding. In others, the administration is bringing lawsuits against them for their work on DEI or shareholder action on climate.
But it’s not just the nonprofits that are suffering. The Trump administration’s scorched earth policy is flooding the zone with attacks on every possible sector – from universities and major law firms to PBS, NPR and the Kennedy Center – even going after foundations. Yes, you heard me right. Our most venerable foundations are under attack by the US Attorney General. We’ll be sharing more about how foundations are responding in the next two months.
Fortunately, many of the foundations at the Forum have just announced they are dramatically increasing their funding to nonprofits in order to help make up for the shortfall from the government’s withdrawal of committed funds. Though the foundation spending increase is massive, it can not fully fill in the huge cutbacks.
To make matters worse, today the Dow Jones Index plunged 2,200 points as Trump’s tariffs tax every American and skyrockets inflation while likely destroying the US economy and those around the world. This wiping out of the value of workers’ retirement funds is also taking place with the invested funds of academic institutions, charities like the Red Cross and foundations, which will likely decrease the amount they will be able to give nonprofits like the Alliance. This is all a very deliberate strategy that was laid out in the Republican Project 2025.
The Rising Tide of Transformation
Clearly, we have to speak up and create a movement to counter these actions. The great news is that each of the Skoll Awardees and delegates is doing exactly that. And they shared their belief that while there is and will be great loss, that we can learn and transform our institutions.
They point out that the broken pieces were weak points in those institutions that probably needed tending to and this is our opportunity to repair them. Rather than wallowing in the sadness of the loss, we can create stronger and more vibrant ones.
Next week in Part Two I’ll share specific examples of what that looks like from unsung heroes and sheroes (as Maya Angelou said) to iconic leaders like comedian Trevor Noah and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousef.