The Community Investment Network (CIN)’s annual conference truly was a Homecoming! It felt so good to virtually gather with hundreds of leaders in philanthropy including writer and philanthropist Melanie Brown, Rev. Eugene Cho of One Day’s Wages, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, and more of the world’s most influential social justice leaders to discuss philanthropy as a tool for community problem-solving.

Founded in 2003, CIN aims to inspire, connect, and strengthen African-Americans and communities of color to leverage their resources to create the change they wish to see. I’m always excited to see what CIN has planned each year for their conference. This year’s Homecoming Conference focused on leveraging the power of collective giving to address systemic racism, poverty, and other injustices communities of color face.

Although we couldn’t meet in-person, the energy was still high and the chats were active! It was great to see the conference have such a wide reach from giving circle members to Foundation professionals to college students.

CIN’s conference came at the perfect time. Right now, we are all experiencing a moment of opportunity to leverage giving circles and collective giving to continue to transform philanthropy. During my session, “Uniting the Giving Circle Field to Democratize and Diversify Philanthropy” I spoke with Terry Love, Vice Chair of CIN, and emphasized that the giving circle movement invites anyone to become a philanthropist and advance social change. Throughout many of the sessions, I heard this sentiment echoed. I believe Rev. Eugene Cho said it best during his plenary session — “It’s the everyday people that really drive the engine of philanthropy.”

Read the full article about driving social change in philanthropy by Sara Lomelin at Medium.