EDGE Funders Alliance invites grantmakers and philanthropic organizers from around the world to apply for the fifth GEL cohort, which will run online from April 2024 to October 2024. 

Entering its fifth year, the Global Engagement Lab (GEL) is a training program for progressive funders, which fosters personal transformation and relationship-building in order to deepen philanthropy’s understanding and practice of systemic change. This year, we are excited to bring the GEL back in person, with a focus on deep engagement, interactivity, and powerful shared space. 

Each GEL cohort engages with and learns from frameworks around Systemic Change and alternatives. However, we also choose a special focus every year where participants have the opportunity to dive deeply into a piece of the intersectional approach needed to transform our field. In this cohort, our aim is to concentrate on exploring economic alternatives that are at the forefront of systemic change, including feminist economics, ecofeminism, queer economics and disability justice economy, while maintaining our programmatic focus within the larger context of philanthropy for systemic change.

We will examine how these issues show up in our work environments, various histories, regional and cultural contexts and in our grantmaking practices. Together, the 2024 cohort will unpack what role philanthropy can play supporting different economic systems while maintaining a critical analysis of the origins of philanthropic resources. 

A lot of gratitude goes to Arianne Shaffer, previous EDGE Co-ED, and the soul and mind behind the Global Engagement Lab. We are grateful for the possibility of continuing this unique program and will do a best to maintain the spirit and objectives of the program.