Farewell to The Summit
Howard Lake | 11 February 2013 | Blogs
The Summit, an unusual event scheduled for April this year, featuring a range of experienced fundraising thinkers and practitioners and with a lofty aim of helping the sector to raise billions more, has been cancelled.
The cancellation follows the online reaction to co-organiser Giles Pegram's comments in response to public comments about the gender balance, or lack of it, on the speaker list.
I'm proud to say that UK Fundraising was, with The Agitator, a media supporter of this event, not least because it was the idea of Giles Pegram, so I lament the fact it will not go ahead. While some of these speakers can be found at the same conference in different places around the world, I can't think of an occasion when they were all to be in one room, all speaking to 'one narrative', and all in London.
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Given the wide range of events for fundraisers almost every day, this one stood out and was worth supporting from the moment we heard about it.
I'm pleased that the debate has raised the issues of gender assumptions within the sector and of the right to question authority and experience.
But, as Roger Craver at The Agitator said: "at a time when there is a crushing need for significant change in the sector, the derailing of this event makes that change less likely — a fact that helps no fundraiser, male or female, no organization, nor any mission".
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.