The new world order of aid: Inside the Skoll World Forum

Summary

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This Week in Global Development

Episode: The New World Order of Aid: Inside the Skoll World Forum

Publish Date: April 23, 2026
Hosts: Adva Saldinger (A), David Ainsworth (B), Rumbi Chakamba (A), Raj (C)
Context: Reporting from the 2026 Skoll World Forum, a leading conference for social innovators and philanthropists.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the hosts provide an in-depth look at the Skoll World Forum, a flagship event in the philanthropic and social innovation calendar. The conversation focuses on the changing landscape of global aid and philanthropy, the evolving role of social enterprises and foundations, and what the future might hold for both donors and doers in development. Listeners get a real sense of the forum's energy, its mix of optimism and critical self-reflection, and the emergence of trends like collaborative philanthropy, the drive for sustainable funding, and the challenge of balancing innovation with basic needs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Skoll World Forum Experience

• Diverse, Energetic, and U.S.-Centric:
  • Conference described as highly philanthropic and focused on connecting "donors and doers."
  • Attendees are mostly small to mid-sized social enterprises, INGOs, and philanthropists from around the globe—but with a strong American influence.
  • Atmosphere is energetic and optimistic despite sector turbulence (e.g., drop in ODA).
  • “It's full of people who believe that they can change the world. They're really passionate—a lot founders of organizations who've kind of lifted themselves up by their bootstraps… Just the energy is unbelievable.” (B, 01:20)

2. Importance of Events Like Skoll

• Increased Relevance in a Changing Aid Landscape:
  • As government aid funding recedes, conferences like Skoll become more crucial for innovation and collaboration.
  • Devex prioritizes coverage of events where influential change happens, with Skoll playing a central role due to the growing importance of private and philanthropic funding.
  • “In this new world, social enterprise, innovation, private funding... that's going to be a much more important part of the overall picture. So I think Skoll actually takes on a more important role in this new era.” (C, 03:38)

3. Who Actually Gets Things Done?

• The “Midwigs” and Their Role:
  • The forum attracts innovative leaders and founders—those not necessarily attached to legacy organizations but actively solving problems.
  • Characterized by a willingness to rethink philanthropy and challenge current norms.
  • Frustration remains about the difficulty of “speaking truth to power” in changing systems.
  • “These are people who are innovating and changing things... A lot of startups, a lot of organizations that are five or ten years old… people who spotted something that they personally felt needed to be fixed and are firing into it.” (B, 04:54)

4. Philanthropy’s Existential Crisis

• Reconciling Expectations and Realities:

  • Foundations face pressure from grantees to fill funding gaps left by reduced government aid (ODA), but most are not structured to replace such funding.
  • Reflective phase: Foundations engage in deep strategic thinking—sometimes to the point of analysis paralysis.
  • “The danger is it turns into analysis paralysis, and they're just in constant strategic rethinking. And meanwhile, the train is sort of leaving the station and they're missing opportunities. That's the challenge.” (C, 07:11)

• Major Frustrations with Status Quo:

  • Philanthropy often lacks flexibility—funders demand adherence to initial plans instead of responding to evolving ground realities.
  • “If you don't trust somebody, don't give them money. And if you do trust somebody, get out of their way, let them get on with it.” (B, 09:08)
  • Philanthropy’s contribution to development likely underestimated in prior estimates, suggesting an urgent need to “get this right” as private funding grows in importance.

5. Signs of Progress: New Models and Greater Coordination

• NGOs/Social Enterprises Shifting Approaches:

  • Recognize the need for more than good ideas; require government and community buy-in for scaling solutions.
  • Example: Solid Africa in Rwanda working with government from the outset to deliver food in hospitals.
  • “They're not starting off with identifying the problem and bringing their great new technology and then finding some international funding. They're starting off with the government and getting government buy in, getting health system buy in.” (C, 10:34)

• Collaborative Philanthropy on the Rise:

  • Increase in pooled and collaborative funding platforms (e.g., The END Fund, Co-Impact, disease-specific vertical funds).
  • Progress evident in the normalization of collaborative funds over the past decade.
  • “Collaborative funds are at the coming thing… It seems like so much of a better idea for one centralized agency to build the expertise and for the money to flow into that.” (B, 12:58)

• Remaining Challenges:

  • Funder preferences still shape who receives money, sometimes to the detriment of sustainability and innovation.
  • Unrestricted/back office costs and sustainability initiatives remain hard to fund.

6. Trend Watch: Technology and AI

• Fad vs. Substance in Funding Priorities:
  • Concern about donors chasing new trends (notably AI) at the expense of funding “basics” that work.
  • “Foundations are so excited by the possibilities around AI that they're pulling back from funding things that they know work in the health space, for example.” (C, 15:42)
• Balancing Innovation and Fundamentals:
  • The need to support both novel approaches and the essential services “that make things happen on the ground.”

7. The Forum as a Marketplace

• Networking, Learning, and Partnership Formation:
  • Attendees seek relationships, funding, and learning through spontaneous interactions.
  • Peer support among “doers” who face similar obstacles.
  • “I think this conference is very much about forming connections, about kind of getting together, just kind of bumping into people, having conversations with people that you've not known before.” (B, 17:15)
• Power Dynamics Shifting for Proven Organizations:
  • Larger, more established social enterprises are now courted by donors rather than the reverse.
  • “Now people want to meet them. And in fact, the...donor advisors and others who are here, like they're looking for these kinds of really big successful examples that they can join up with and be a part of.” (C, 19:09)
• Growth in Sustainable and Earned Income Models:
  • Increased attention to business models, with participants seeking ways to generate independent revenue streams.

8. What’s Next: Topics to Watch at the Forum

• Key Sessions and Themes Upcoming:
  • Focus on the “new capital stack”—blending philanthropy, private finance, and DFIs; reframing aid as a market ecosystem.
  • Emphasis on enabling environments: Democracy, rule of law, competent governments as foundations for innovation.
  • “It's easy to meet these social entrepreneurs doing amazing stuff and forget...a lot of the reason they can do this stuff is they live in democracies and there is a rule of law or they're dealing with a government that they can work with.” (C, 23:23)

9. The Power of Serendipity

• Personal Encounters Yield Impact:
  • Hosts value unscheduled, serendipitous meetings for identifying under-the-radar innovators.
  • “You bump into so many interesting people who are doing so many interesting things, so much stuff that you've never heard of before… It's a really unique opportunity to hear from kind of small organizations that were doing really original work.” (B, 24:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Forum Vibe:
  • “All of these people are kind of worried with an internal dynamo...surprisingly untroubled about the massive drop in ODA...It's really interesting to see how much people have absorbed the chaos of the last year and kind of moved on unscathed.” (B, 01:40)
• On Philanthropy’s Dilemma:
  • “What's the new structure look like in development? What's the new architecture?...that's sort of the zeitgeist in the philanthropy world right now.” (C, 07:07)
• On Flawed Funding Dynamics:
  • “Nobody wants a school. It's completely useless. But the foundation says, 'No, we funded you to build a school. Build a school.'” (B, 08:42)
• On Incremental vs. Revolutionary Change:
  • “Progress...incremental progress rather than kind of wholesale revolution.” (B, 14:13)
• On Trends Over Substance:
  • “It's kind of easier for them sometimes to pull back. Whether it's a fad or political pressure… it's a lot harder for other institutions in this space to do.” (C, 16:20)
• On Evolving Power Dynamics:
  • “It isn't so one sided. It isn't just about the people with the money kind of calling all the shots.” (C, 19:24)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:24 – Skoll vibe: diversity, passion, optimism despite sector headwinds
• 03:38 – Skoll's increasing importance as global aid shifts to philanthropy and innovation
• 04:51 – Who gets things done? The rise of the “midwigs” in the sector
• 05:55 – Philanthropy's crisis: reflection, unmet expectations, analysis paralysis
• 09:36 – Calls for bolder, trust-based funding approaches in philanthropy
• 10:34 – New models: Engaging governments and communities for scalable solutions
• 12:54 – The rise of collaborative funds and platforms
• 15:39 – Critique of foundation fads (e.g., AI) vs. continued support for basic needs
• 17:12 – How doers make the most of Skoll: connection, partnership, peer support
• 18:59 – Shifting power: Large social enterprises now drawing donor attention
• 21:08 – Earned income and sustainability featured in sector discussions
• 22:42 – Upcoming events: “new capital stack,” rule of law, and enabling environments
• 24:24 – Serendipitous meetings as a catalyst for discovering impactful work

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Closing Reflections

The episode is both reflective and forward-looking, capturing the dynamism of the social innovation field at a time of uncertainty and transformation. The Skoll World Forum serves as a microcosm of the challenges facing global development—and of the resilient, adaptive responses emerging from within. Listeners are left with a sense of both the hard questions being asked around funding, strategy, and scale, and the infectious optimism of a community committed to shaping solutions for a changing world.

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Transcript

[A]

My name is Rumbi Chakamba and you're listening to this week in Global Development hosted by myself, Ata Saldinger and David Ainsworth. And I'm joined by Dave and Raj who are at the school forum this year. So, Dave, you've been to school quite a few times. Can you tell us what's the vibe at school and what kind of people like, go to school?

[B]

Sure. So skol's quite a unique conference. It's really a very philanthropy centered conference. The kind of the rubric that they like to use is it's for the donors and the doers and it's really focused on kind of small to mid sized social enterprises and INGOs who are kind of interacting very closely with not the really huge foundations, although some of them are there. But there's a real diversity of different foundations here with different kind of missions and different approaches and thousands and thousands of people from all over the world. It's a very diverse conference. It is quite an American conference. They describe it in some ways as a US Conference in Oxford because the Scott foundation is a US organization. A lot of the people who are connected to it, particularly from the West Coast, a lot of people have flown in. But one thing that really struck me about this is a diversity. People here from all over the world doing all sorts of different things is full of people who believe that they can change the world. They're really passionate a lot founders of organizations who've kind of lifted themselves up by their bootstraps, often from quite difficult situations and set up their own organizations. Just the energy is unbelievable. All of these people are kind of worried with an internal dynamo. People are surprisingly untroubled about the massive drop in oda. They seem to be talking about finding ways to adapt. It's possible that maybe the reason for that is that some of the people who would have been here, who got a lot of USAID funding, a lot of government funding from other European dudes have just not come. And that might explain it. But there is also a real kind of, no, we can fix this. We can make this work. It's really interesting to see how much people have absorbed the chaos of the last year and kind of moved on unscathed.

[A]

And Raj, I'm hearing this is your first time going to school. So first question is, how do you decide what kind of events and gatherings you personally attend and what kind of events and gatherings are important for devics to attend? And do you think that's going to change with like this new changed environment that we're in that the, that gatherings like school maybe will become more important.

[C]

Well, let me just say a word about the energy, because I agree with Dave. You know, I've been struck by it, especially as a first timer here. I literally, when I first arrived to go get my badge, I walked by one of the side event venues and I saw people with their skull badges on doing some kind of a line dance. And they were literally dancing. And I thought, this has got to be kind of a one off. And then I went to one party and, you know, everybody was just so enthusiastic and positive. And I met some friends there. We crashed another party. And at that event, they had some kind of an icebreaker. And it's the sort of thing that you can imagine at some of these receptions, someone tries an icebreaker and it's hard to get people into it. The opposite. You know, everybody wanted to be part of this icebreaker. The energy and enthusiasm is really infectious, and I can see why people look forward to this event. So many people I've run into have said, I can't believe you haven't been here before. I think, you know, it's always been an important event for us to cover at Devex. You've had journalists coming here and colleagues coming here for many years now. And I'm convinced my colleagues have kept me from this because we want this positivity to ourselves. Now that I see what it's all about, I want to keep coming back. You know, you're right. There are so many conferences and events. Like, how do you decide what we do? I think it devex a lot of our editorial focuses. Where is the influence? You know, like, where are people really driving the agenda? And they're, you know, where those moments are happening around the world. We try to have our reporters there, we try to cover those events, engage with them in a really deep way. And I think SKOL has been important, but it's more important now. To sum up what Dave is just saying, in this new world, social enterprise, innovation, private funding, whether it's philanthropic or investment, that's going to be a much more important part of the overall picture. So I think Skoal actually takes on a more important role in this new era. And you can get, you get a feeling for that here. Talking to some of the philanthropists, talking to some of the social innovators that are here. Like, there is not just a positive energy because people are seeing each other and it's been a tough year, but also a sense that there's real possibility and there are real Things happening.

[A]

Speaking of the people, actually have a quick question for you, Dave, but you can also jump in here. Speaking of the type of people that attend the conference, I think last year, Dave, you described it as not the big wigs, maybe sort of like the midwigs. Do you get a sense that these are the people who actually get things done?

[B]

Absolutely, yeah. I mean it is very. That was a very clever phrase. Well done me to coming up with that. Yeah, these are people who are innovating and changing things. These are not people who've got a big established organization. They've got big legacy funding. A lot of startups, a lot of organizations that are five or 10 years old, people who spotted something that they personally felt needed it to be fixed and are firing into it. And then the people that they're working with are very much the kind of venture philanthropists, the people who've got an idea about funding startups. A lot of conversations here about how to do philanthropy differently, to do it better. A lot of frustration with the state of philanthropy as it is right now. A lot of people talking about how difficult it is to kind of speak truth to power, to change the system.

[A]

And you, you both describe this group of people who have answers when you talk about how to do philanthropy better. What are some of the conversations that are coming up and some of the solutions that are coming up?

[C]

Yeah, I think there's like an existential crisis for philanthropy. You know, they are, they're really trying to decide, you know, they're all their grantees are calling them and saying, we're in trouble. You know, we've lost all this ODA funding. There's a huge gap, you know, our work. Why can't you just help fill that gap, help scale up what we're doing? Because we've got people, patients or kids that we're serving that we can't serve right now without your support. And so there's some frustration, I think, on the part of some of the grantees who I've spoken to here, that they find the foundations are in a period of self reflection. And those foundations, their argument would be, yeah, we can't ever fill the gap that government leaves behind. That's not what we're set up for. So we're not going to just jump in. Maybe there'll be some rare cases where they do that, but for the most part, they're not going to jump in and try to fill the gap caused by the cuts to oda, but instead they are taking a moment to step back and say, well, what's the future market look like for some of the big problems the world's trying to solve around health or education or agriculture or what have you? And then what are the right ways for us to intervene? So I think that's where I find the foundations are right now. I've talked to a number of philanthropists here. They're in this moment of self reflection. The danger is it turns into analysis paralysis, and they're just in constant strategic rethinking. And meanwhile, the train is sort of leaving the station and they're missing opportunities. That's the challenge. Right. And I don't think everybody's in that boat, but there's a lot of people really thinking deeply about what is the role of philanthropy? What do they. What's it all for? How does this. What's the new structure look like in development? What's the new architecture? And I'm having a lot of those conversations on the sidelines here. I think that's sort of the zeitgeist in the philanthropy world right now.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's very much the theme of this conference. Right. Is kind of, what's the purpose of philanthropy? What should it look like? Some really interesting data came out a few weeks ago from the OECD which showed that philanthropy, their estimates of the size of the philanthropic contribution to development was probably double what they had previously estimated it as. I mean, they were fairly open that their previous statistics were not that reliable. And reading them, reading between the lines, I kind of got the impression that actually it's a lot larger even than they've managed to measure so far, because measuring philanthropy is so hard. A philanthropic slice of the pie is probably far larger than we ever thought it was. So that. I mean, so which. It's really kind of crucially important to get this right. What philanthropists often do is they come in and they say to you, how are you going to solve the problem? And you say, well, we're going to do this. And then off you go and you work for six months. And actually, our original idea was rubbish. We shouldn't be doing that at all. We should be doing this other thing over here. And the foundation says, well, no, we funded you to build this school. And you say, well, nobody wants a school. It's completely useless. Funded you to build a school. Build a school. And that's the frustration with philanthropy, that it doesn't pivot. Another great quote was from somebody saying, well, there's a minimum payout of 5% each year, and do you really want to Be known as the person who did the minimum. That's what you want on your gravestone, is it? We did the minimum allowed, and I'm paraphrasing this here, but essentially what they were saying was if you don't trust somebody, don't give them money. And if you do trust somebody, get out of their way, let them get on with it, give them a long grab, give them an unrestricted grub, don't spend all your time micromanaging them or trying to get them to do what you think needs to be done. They're the experts, let them solve the problem.

[A]

But I feel like these discussions happen quite a lot and I think grantees have been saying this quite a lot. But do you think there is any change, like looking at the position that the development community is in now, are you seeing that change, that philanthropies are now more open to do things differently?

[C]

I think so. And I think also the, not the NGOs, the social enterprises, they're kind of adapting to some of the critiques of them, right? Because a lot of times what you had was a well intentioned founder with a really exciting innovation or technology or approach and they would maybe be a good salesperson. They, they made a great PowerPoint deck and they got some initial funding from a foundation and they kind of got to a certain point and then they couldn't really get much more funding and they were never able to scale. And it's easy to say, well, that's the fault of philanthropy. Why isn't philanthropy coming in, scaling this great idea? Well, a lot of times it's because that idea never started with the right foundational elements like government buy in, you know, community buy in. It might have been something, you know, cooked up in the capitol and not where it's actually meant to be, to be run from. So I met, for example, a budding social enterprise called Solid Africa that's working to ensure that hospitals in Rwanda provide food, nutritious food, to their patients. Normally, patients show up and they have to bring their own food, their family have to bring food or they have to pay for food. And often the most in need patients don't have the funding for that. So you can imagine the hospital's giving them medicine, but they have nothing to eat. So, you know, this is not going to be a very successful health intervention. But, you know, Solid Africa is interesting in that they're not starting off with identifying the problem and bringing their great new technology and then finding some international funding. They're starting off with the government and getting government buy in, getting health system buy in. They are building some kitchens, getting patients involved, figuring out a model that can really work. And then they start to scale more philanthropic funding from overseas. And then you could imagine this one day really transitioning seamlessly to government funding. That might take 10 or 15 years, but you could have a process whereby smaller foundations seed ideas like this, bigger ones come in and give it the kind of mezzanine funding it needs to get to be a larger national scale. Eventually, really big global foundations like a Gates comes in and says, this is something we can support at a scaled level. And eventually the government just picks up the tab. But, you know, the question is, can the philanthropic sector work in sort of a coordinated way? It's not there yet, but I think you're seeing signs of a more of a, I don't know, efficient market starting to take place. And the collaborative philanthropy space is really moving. I just came from a session on that. Chris Hone was one of the, I think, big wigs probably that showed up. There's not that many, but you're. But he would count, of course, you know, the founder and funder of sif, and, you know, he was there along with many other major philanthropists, talking about the idea of working together disease specific funds, other kinds of funds that are, you know, this was a event put on by the end fund, but other kinds of vertical funds that bring together philanthropies and align strategies. And I think there's a lot of progress happening in that space.

[B]

Yeah, I would agree with all of that. I mean, definitely collaborative funds are at the coming thing that people are talking about doing this much, much more. It does seem really to be the answer. Like, rather than each foundation building its own expertise, it seems like so much of a better idea for one centralized agency to build the expertise and for the money to flow into that. It's good at a local level, if you want to give money locally, then you need somebody who knows the people in the local area. But obviously, the local people aren't in a position to do all the reporting and fundraising that they need to do. These kind of funds act as a fantastic intermediary. Often what they can do is they can leverage their grantees and say to the grantees, who will you give money to? Which of your fellow grantees are the ones who are doing the best work? And obviously they all know which of their partners are the most effective.

[C]

And to the extent that Dave. To the extent that we wonder, and as you questioned us, Roombi, like, is there Progress. A lot of this sounds like the same stuff. I mean, look at the fact that I think it was a decade ago that CO Impact got started, you know, maybe the first or one of the first collaborative philanthropies. And now 10 years later, there are so many. And it, you know, you can. There's so many funds or collaborative philanthropy vehicles and platforms, and it's. It rolls off the tongue and it's become something pretty standard now. That's a sign of real progress. That wasn't the case just several years ago.

[B]

That being said, I would say that I. I sat in the lunch hall with somebody who founded a small organization, and I've been at that session I was talking about this morning, and she said, yeah, those guys sound like they' great funders, assuming that they do what they say they do. But that's not my experience of dealing with foundations and funders and whatever. And she gave me a very interesting example of how she wanted to transition from taking foundation money to earned income. And she could see lots of ways to build ongoing revenue streams with some seed capital. And he said, I just didn't fit in their kind of conception of who I ought to be. The vibe wasn't right for them, and they wouldn't fund it. And I think there are still a lot of people who are very dissatisfied with the state of philanthropy as well. A lot of people here are still talking about how there is change, there is progress, but they still talk about the fact that people won't fund back office costs. People still, like, will fund a project and go, oh, that works, that's great. We don't need to fund you anymore. And you're like, but no, the project works. We go, this works. That's the best thing to fund. So there are still a lot of. I think we are seeing progress, but we're seeing incremental progress rather than kind of wholesale revolution.

[C]

Yeah. One critique I had a leader in the health space come up to me and talk about was that foundations get really excited by fads. And it's hard to think of artificial intelligence as a fad. I mean, it's a major macro theme. It's transforming the world. But she was telling me this particular leader, that foundations are so excited by the possibilities around AI that they're pulling back from funding things that they know work in the health space, for example, because they're kind of trying to sketch out a vision for the future where AI is going to play a role. And her point was like, well, in the meantime, you know, there's certain fundamental things we know we need, and why don't we keep funding those? So this idea that philanthropies, because it isn't a real marketplace. Right. They don't get graded in the way so many other institutions get graded, are held accountable. It's kind of easier for them sometimes to pull back. Whether it's a fad or political pressure. You know, just going quiet is something a foundation can kind of do and get away with in a way that it's a lot harder for other institutions in this space to do.

[A]

Yeah, we have a lot of conversations around the transparency around of foundations, but then I know in the health space, a lot of people, and this is like a criticism that Gates also gets, is that sometimes you forget to find the basics because you're so focused on this new and exciting innovation. And it's all about innovation. But the basics are also like really what's important and what makes things happen on the ground. But I'm curious about the other side of the coin. Dave, you said it brings together the donors and the doers. So how do doers make the most of a conference like score?

[B]

Well, I think one thing they do is they connect a lot with the donors. I think a lot of the reason that a lot of people have come here is to raise money or to find funds to connect with the right people to tap into the zeitgeist and understand what they need. A lot of people have come here to form partnerships as well and to learn. But I think this, this conference is very much about forming connections, about kind of getting together, just kind of bumping into people, having conversations with people that you've, you've, you've not known before. Somebody will say, oh, I must introduce you to this other person here. And you're getting in, you're kind of getting in a room where it happens, or you're getting together with other people who are working on the same projects as you and that sort of thing. I think there's a little bit, if I'm honest, of people coming here and they're all beaver, in a way, by themselves and that they're kind of padding along and then suddenly they're in a room full of people who are doing the same thing, and they're kind of looking around and going, thank goodness I'm not by myself anymore. Thank goodness I'm among kind of my kindred spirits, people who have the same passions and desires as me, who are facing the same problem. A lot of people having conversations about, oh, goodness, how do you how do you dealing with governments? Who's driving me crazy. Yeah, it's driving me crazy too. All kind of we're scaling up our workforce. That's really hard. I don't really know how to do it. Yeah, I've been through those struggles as well. I think some people are here kind of speculatively just to see kind of who they can connect with and whether, whether this is a place that they can, that they can actually raise some money. And then other people are here because they've built rich connections here over years and years and they're coming back again and again to kind of, just to kind of take a warm bath in the network that they've built.

[C]

And we're at a point now in the evolution of social entrepreneurship, Rumby, where there are actually some really big social enterprises now that have reached real scale. And so when they come here, they don't need to fundraise like they might have had to a decade ago where you know, they've got to really chase after a foundation representative at some cocktail party and try to steal a couple of minutes from them. You know, now people want to meet them. And in fact the, you know, philanthropists and donor advisors and others who are here like they're, they're looking for these kinds of really big successful examples that they can join up with and be a part of and they want to be part of the next big ambitious thing. So you know, it's interesting to see that dynamic play out now as this market matures more. It isn't so one sided. It isn't just about the people with the money kind of calling all the shots. I was on a panel today with Rukmini Banerjee, the dynamic founder Pratham, the big Indian educational ngo and I think they're a great example, right? They've reached a certain scale. They're now operating internationally, they've received massive funding from all over the world. They don't necessarily have to go chase after foundation funding. In fact, some of it's the other way around. And you see more and more of those cases. There was an amazing conversation on stage last night between Trevor Noah and the founder while we were of Food for Education. And you know, she's super dynamic social entrepreneur who started from Nothing, started feeding 25 kids and then 100 kids. Now she has 600,000 kids in Kenya that her organization feeds, that she sees as customers, you know, and that's some significant scale. She wants to get to 3 million by 2030. She's of course here looking for Funding, I'm sure, but it's not a one way street, it's a dynamic now. And she's built a business model right there where sure she could use more philanthropic funding, but it's not all about that because she's got to worry about sustainability and the government's role and getting fees from parents and building a model that can truly grow and last over time. So it's really fascinating and I think encouraging to see the evolution of this marketplace here.

[B]

Yeah, that's an interesting point actually. Sorry, can I just jump in on that like. Well, one thing that people are increasingly talking about is how else do we fund this stuff? Like there is a lot of kind of philanthropic capital flowing into this space here and that is the big source of money, I think. But people are thinking a lot about earned income. How can we be more sustainable? How can we like all sorts of different ways that people can generate revenue for themselves. And that's a bigger and bigger part of the conversation as well. I think a lot of what people are here to talk to each other about is kind of the ways that they can do it. And actually I will say the one other major thing here which is very prevalent this year is technology and AI and how that's best applied in the social space. One person said to me, like, you get the feeling with tech for good? All the tech guys are like, oh well, there's the tech for good stuff and then there's the real tech over here and how do we make sure that that's not how it ends up? So that's something that people are thinking hard about at the moment. I've got a bunch of sessions coming up on that in the next day, in a bit talking about the future of AI in this space. Had a fascinating conversation with a guy who's working on AI in health this morning. Huge amount of that I think is probably, you should check it. The other really big theme here this year that I'm hearing a lot of discussion about.

[A]

So what are you guys looking forward to in the coming days? What will you be following?

[C]

Well, tonight we're hosting a dinner, a private dinner, which is all about kind of a new capital stack. How do you invest in real development challenges and make real progress on them? Not in the way we used to think about this, which might have been led by the donor country and their bilateral aid agency and everyone kind of doing their own thing. But more, how do you think about this as a market? And there's going to be philanthropic capital, there's going to be private investment. You've got the world banks and the DFIs of the world. Right. We'll have a lot of those people around the table for this, I hope. A really dynamic discussion tonight and then tomorrow I'm interviewing the new, relatively new president of the Ford foundation, having a conversation with her and my good friend indeed Nweli, who is the CEO of one. And I hope we're going to contribute to the discussion a little bit of what's been missing so far at school for me, which is thinking about the broader enabling environment like we it's easy to meet these social entrepreneurs doing amazing stuff and forget. Well, a lot of the reason they can do this stuff is they live in democracies and there is a rule of law or they're dealing with a government that they can work with, you know, that's got competence and you know, it's just kind of easy to forget that without some of those fundamentals a lot of what you see here at the SKOA World Forum wouldn't be possible. And we live in a really challenging moment for a lot of the NGOs that aren't in things like health or agriculture. You know, if you work in rights or democracy or governance, this is not necessarily an easy moment. You might be having a very different experience than some of the positive stories Dave and I have referred to. So I think we're going to have, I hope a really interesting conversation on the main stage about this tomorrow afternoon.

[A]

And Dave, what are you looking forward to?

[B]

Yeah, I'm going to give a completely different answer to that, which is I'm looking forward to just meeting people at random. I found increasingly as I've come to Skull, I go to the sessions, there are some interesting speakers that you haven't heard before. Like you go, you listen, Trevor Noah is going to talk. Richard Gere apparently is here. Like I don't know if anybody under the age of 40 knows who Richard Gere is, but he was, he was famous. Well, so that's, it's obviously good to see, see these big names or whatever, but I find thing that's most useful for me increasingly is just wandering around and talking to people at random like you. You bump into so many interesting people who are doing so many interesting things, so much stuff that you've never heard of before, so many people doing life changing stuff that you, you never spent a moment thinking about. I, last year I met a guy who was a, an eye surgeon who'd done all sorts of fantastic pioneering stuff about bringing vision to Africa. And he Actually ended up speaking at the DEVEX conference just recently, just last week, I think, as a. As a result of us bumping into each other last year. And he tells some fantastic stories. He told a great story about how his organization tried to spot for him to build a church in a village. And he said, I don't think they want to church. I think they were on a football pitch. And he says, and eventually this church who was giving the money came back and said, okay, we'll build him a football pitch. And he said it, like, and all. All sorts of stuff like that. You just get these really random encounters that you hear from interesting people, like, and it's a really unique opportunity to hear from kind of small organizations that were doing really original work and have got great stories that you never would hear otherwise.

[A]

Well, I'm looking forward to both your reflections after the conference. And Dave usually comes back with a list of cool people that we should all know. So if you bump into him, tell him your story, he'll share it with the newsroom, and we will share your story as well.

[C]

Oh, Rumbi, our readers are very much here in force. And listeners. I'm talking to so many people. I'm sure you are, too, Dave. You know, they love what we're doing. They give us lots of accomplishments, which we really appreciate, and they give us notes. You know, you're missing this story. You should be covering this more. So it's so valuable from that perspective. And it's been great to meet so many of our readers and listeners.

[B]

Oh, yeah. We've got so many good tips. And you're absolutely right, Raj. Oh, you, like, introduce yourself to somebody and say, oh, what do you do? What organization are you from? And everybody kind of talks a little bit about the thing, and then we show up and they go, Derek's. Oh, we know devex. And it's a completely different vibe. I think it's very gratifying to see the impact of the work that we're doing kind of out in the wild.

[A]

Yeah, always so gratifying. Thank you both so much for joining me. And, yeah, have a good rest of the conference.