An Agile tool for Impact Finance
CALL FOR PROPOSAL - AGILE Criteria for Impact Projects : Cross-Evaluation and Knowledge-Sharing Session.
Following the release of the White Paper published by the Geneva Foundation for the Future on September 1st, 2025, the Geneva Forum is continuing its mission of designing the tool through a collaborative consolidation process.
Philanthropists, Investors, Industrial Incubators, Entrepreneurs, and Infrastructures — we are all gathering for this half-day session to share our field feedback on the use of the AGILE tool.
The founding idea of liberal economics assumes that each individual’s self-interest drives them to do good for everyone.
We have nevertheless observed that the common good often requires a few substantial helping hands — financial and political — to assert itself and establish its place as a major economic model. It is therefore no surprise that the leading countries of liberal capitalism are also home to a remarkable number of philanthropic foundations. These institutions fund entire sectors of the academic world — and much more. The internet, for instance, would never have achieved its global reach without a few well-placed “helping hands.”
It is thus not too early to draw the attention of all major financial regions, so that political and economic leaders may understand the significance of this phenomenon and the economic mechanism behind it. As the saying goes, “Charity begins at home.” But one must first understand that “home” means our social fabric — others, the state, the community. We are human because we are not alone.
Therefore, doing good for oneself also means doing good for others. This is our basic premise! Hence, our approach to impact finance, the impact sought on the common good.
Impact finance (philanthropy and investment) therefore plays a crucial role in addressing the social and environmental challenges of our time.
In order to improve the efficiency and sustainability of "impact projects", we will continue, during this workshop on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, the development of agile tools for their evaluation and monitoring, while strengthening interactions between funders and project leaders.
|
As part of the 18th Geneva Forum, this annual conference offers a high-level interactive workshop dedicated to philanthropy and impact investments. It will be held on Tuesday, December 8, 2026, from 08:30 AM to 1:00 PM in Geneva, and will bring together key actors to discuss financial mechanisms that contribute to peace and development. This event is organized in partnership with the Geneva Forum and the Geneva Foundation for the Future.
Call for Contributions
We invite:
– researchers,
– impact finance professionals (philanthropy and investment),
– impact project leaders (capable of providing field insights),
– as well as experts, evaluators, coaches, and public or private institutions (chambers of commerce, incubators...) involved in the development of the solidarity and impact economy,
to contribute to this initiative. Your expertise and field feedback are essential to build an innovative analysis tool capable of maximizing financial resources and better meeting the needs of impact projects.
This workshop is part of the work carried out during the Geneva Forum’s Conference Cycle and aims to provide the professional community with a simple, effective, and relevant tool. It will facilitate collaboration between funders and project leaders to maximize the use of available financial resources and investments in citizen-driven impact initiatives.
By leveraging the animation provided by the Geneva Forum and the steering committee of the Geneva Foundation for the Future, we will collaboratively update a simple and innovative analysis tool developed from 2022 to 2024 to promote understanding, interaction, and collaboration between funders and project leaders in order to maximize the use of available financial resources and investments in citizen-driven initiatives.
To achieve this, we will first give the floor to 10 professionals, each from a different field, for 5 minutes during the first hour of the workshop. The audience will have received information about the speakers and their organizations before the session. Thus, each of these short presentations will focus on the winning practices in monitoring and evaluating impact projects, such as the most efficient criteria offering the best predictions of project success or failure.
- If you wish to propose a topic for short presentations, please fill out the form further down this page.
- If you would like to review the workshop program, please visit the Impact Finance Conference page of the Geneva Forum.
Workshop Agenda
- 08:30 AM: Arrival
- 09:00 AM: Welcome
- 09:15 AM: Keynote speeches (keynotes)
- 09:35 AM: Short presentations cycle (10 interventions of 5 minutes) - see below
- 10:30 AM: Statement of the question to be addressed
- 10:40 AM: Breakout group discussions
- 11:45 AM: Interactive roundtable (feedback session)
- 12:45 PM: Closing remarks
- 1:00 PM: End of the workshop
- 7:00 PM: Networking Dinner
Workshop Objectives
- Develop a framework for evaluating the impact and economic sustainability of impact projects.
- Develop a flexible and adaptable tool that facilitates interaction between funders, project leaders, and coaches in the solidarity economy, ensuring simplicity even for small organizations. This tool should not replace existing legal and methodological frameworks but should help projects and actions conform more easily.
- Optimize the allocation of financial resources to better support quality citizen projects.
Main Theme and Areas of Reflection
- Central theme: Impact finance, philanthropy, impact investment, support, and acceleration of impact projects.
- Scientific justification: In the current context, available funding for impact projects is underutilized, often due to a mismatch between funder expectations and project presentations. This call seeks to bridge the gap between these two worlds through an analytical tool that addresses this issue.
- Disciplinary fields and research areas:
|