unDavos Webinar: The Future of Civil Society: Alternative Resourcing for NGOs
Welcome to the inaugural session of our community-hosted webinar series, sparked by the energy of unDavos 2025. We’re continuing the conversation with bold topics—from AI and finance to sustainability, storytelling, and beyond.
Each session is your chance to engage, contribute, and shape what’s next with the unDavos community.
15th October Session Overview
Title: The Future of Civil Society: Alternative Resourcing for NGOs
Description: The human rights and social justice nonprofit sector stands at a critical moment in its history. Where is it going? The traditional funding model—where organizations receive the bulk of their financial support from a small number of like-minded philanthropic foundations or government donor agencies—has revealed itself to be fundamentally unsustainable and vulnerable. Given both long-term issues as well as the especially difficult current global context, the need for new thinking, resources, innovative funding models, and fresh revenue streams is more urgent than ever. Human rights and social justice organizations feel pressure to resolve sometimes existential questions about how best to enhance their sustainability while keeping their autonomy and independence.
Louis Bickfrord and Nicolette Naylor have been working and innovating in this space for decades, and will bring lessons from the recently established ARCS (Alternative Resourcing for Social Change and Solidarity) Roundtable, a global community of practice aimed at strengthening the resilience of social justice and human rights NGOs for the long-term.
These alternative approaches include monetization opportunities and diversification of financial support, as well as a more expansive definition to ‘resourcing’ that includes multiple forms of non-financial support moving beyond money to, for example, leadership strengthening, sanctuary and security, convening spaces, connectivity, communications, allyship, membership, solidarity economics, and public support, and involves donors in the discussion to think through ecosystem-level changes.
Format: Fireside Chat (An informal in-depth conversation)
Host:
Louis Bickford CEO at MindStory and Memria
With nearly three decades of experience in NGO funding and sustainability, Louis Bickford has established himself as a respected authority at the intersection of philanthropy, social enterprise, and sustainable organizational development. His unique perspective has been shaped by hands-on experience as a grantmaker, academic, consultant, board member, and social entrepreneur. As a senior portfolio manager at the Ford Foundation, Louis oversaw $50 million dedicated to institutional strengthening for human rights organizations, exploring innovative funding approaches that would later influence Ford's prestigious BUILD program; he is an adjunct professor at Columbia University, where he teaches courses on NGO management and leadership; and has launched two successful social enterprises which actively deploy alternative revenue models.
Speakers:
Nicolette Naylor Founder and CEO at Ubuntu Global Philanthropy & Gender Justice
Nicolette Naylor is a global strategic leader and experienced executive with over two decades of experience leading strategies at the intersection of justice and philanthropy. She has spent over fifteen years working within one of the largest global philanthropies, the Ford Foundation. Nicolette led the Ford Foundation's Southern Africa office and International Program on Gender, Racial & Ethnic Justice and has managed diverse teams across New York, India, West Africa, Southern Africa and Latin America. Her work has focused on gender justice and increasing resources for civil society and movements in the global South. She is committed to strengthening the feminist funding ecosystem for Black, Indigenous women and girls, women and girls of color and gender expansive individuals.
Be Part of It – Apply to Host a Webinar
Do you have a conversation the world needs to hear? Are you ready to lead a session that sparks ideas and drives change? We’re inviting community members to host a webinar—solo or with a panel—as part of our official unDavos series.
To apply, share:
A proposed title and short description
Your speaker list (or indicate if it’s a solo session)
Your preferred format (e.g., panel, fireside chat, keynote, debate, etc.)
Topic: Can include finance, AI, sustainability, storytelling, longevity, health, policy innovation, and more.