Talk About Talking: Making a Grantee Convening Count

We are in a volatile, uncertain, and complex time. In philanthropy, our response is often to have a meeting about holding more meetings, at which we’ll discuss the next meetings we need. This is understandable — we hold a lot of responsibility, we want to make informed decisions, and we want dollars to be used well. Thankfully, the field has started to recognize a truth that can help break us out of our philanthropic routines: that the people doing the work on front lines in the community know best. They are also under a chaotic, unjust, overwhelming, and calculated attack right now.

This summer, Archstone Foundation found itself in a position that many funders may relate to right now: we wanted to react, quickly, in service of our grantees, to understand what they were experiencing, and what we could do to help. Our conversations one-on-one with grantees unveiled a group of exhausted and determined leaders. This lit a fire under us to bring them together, in person, for a real conversation about what to do next and lay the groundwork for action. We realized we could play the convener role, doing the work to bring leaders together to collaborate, share ideas, concerns, support and solutions.

Below we will share our approach as a small funder, in the field of aging, to bringing our grantees together productively in a community engagement event. This was our first in a now annual approach to community convening.

Starting from Actual Scratch: Listening First

Our one-on-one conversations with grantees, which was a whole organization effort in the early part of 2025, laid the groundwork for an agenda and content. A clear throughline emerged: while grantees were making progress on many fronts, they wanted legal consulting, advocacy, and communications support. Hearing from older adults, caregivers, and community partners from the outset gave us three areas of content, the start of a consensus-building process, and an opportunity to prime folks for collaborative problem solving.

One participant noted:

The [convening] provided an important and thoughtful forum for idea generation, collaborative problem solving, and conversation with colleagues. I gained a deeper understanding of the issues from the varying perspectives of the attendees, and was grateful for the opportunity to share my own thoughts as well. It was a pleasure seeing and spending time with you all at the event. I look forward to hearing about the Foundation’s findings and next steps.”

Respect Leaders’ Time: Five Hours is Enough

Honoring the clear message that folks are overwhelmed and tired, we elected to keep the event to five hours, and 50 people (one representative per organization). Grassroots organizations are often under-resourced and can’t send multiple staff to events or spare them from day-to-day operations in order to attend. We were also aiming for the highly prized safe space for our partners, which can be more challenging in larger groups. Archstone Foundation covered travel and provided an honorarium to recognize participant’s time.

We had five hours, so we carefully developed a narrative arc for the day. The morning kicked off with data, while everyone was fresh — our first speaker led us through the facts of what older adults are facing in the present moment. From there, we put together a panel of legal, communications, and advocacy experts to imbue that data with meaning.

Wanting to ensure attendees had time to talk to each other, we then had them rotate around three rooms dedicated to each content area (legal, advocacy, communications). Crucially, we spent considerable staff time selecting facilitators with multicultural backgrounds, and experience in multiple industries and consensus-building, ensuring that these facilitators had enough context, experience, and understanding to meet participants where they were. Their unique skills, background, and energy helped reveal emerging themes, quiet truths, and honesty without pressure.

We closed with remarks from a community organizer and thought leader known for her unscripted, truth-telling style. She spoke not from slides but from experience, weaving hope and urgency into a powerful call to action in the face of real challenges ahead. Ending on a note of possibility and inspiration, rather than a list of next steps, honored the encouragement, clarity, and connection people were seeking.

Recording Off

Readers will notice we don’t have photo or video to share. Another decision that came from our early listening sessions was not to record or photograph any part of the gathering. For some participants who face heightened risk in their work, especially those involved in sensitive advocacy campaigns, this was crucial. Removing documentation created a sense of safety that allowed people to speak openly and share novel, even unconventional ideas without fear.

Put Your Money Where Your Meeting Is

Even before the day was over, we had already seen positive results from this approach. Attendees could immediately use the connections they made. In this small group setting, they exchanged ideas, shared contact information, and networked for future collaboration, all while developing ideas for creating and building programs in real time. People felt heard, energized, and more connected to each other’s work.

These insights aren’t disappearing into a report. We’re integrating them into our long-term strategic planning, sharing them back with participants and our board, and amplifying them across our networks. In response to the needs we heard, we are increasing our payout rate.

We also collected feedback from attendees on what we can improve for next year, since we will now be making community-focused convening an annual feature of our work at Archstone Foundation.

While it will necessarily look different for different funding and nonprofit communities, we encourage our partners in philanthropy to learn from their grantees, bring them together, and make it count. In a time where needs are intense and growing and it’s easy to become overwhelmed, we can’t afford not to take the time and resources to create thoughtful opportunities for joint action.

Gerson Galdamez, Ph.D., is a program officer at Archstone Foundation. Laura Rath, Ph.D., M.S.G. is vice president of programs at Archstone Foundation.