The Voices Beyond The Conference

The elephant in the room of any nonprofit conference is about who isn't there, which more often than not is the people who are actually experiencing the impact of the problems we're all trying to solve. While social entrepreneurship events like SoCap09 and the Skoll World Forum are increasingly focused on enabling international participation, there remains a question of whether we're leaving a fundamentally vital group out of the conversation.

I discussed this topic with Erik Hersman, founder of Ushahidi this morning. Erik, who blogs at Whiteafrican.com, was born to missionary parents in Kenya and has spent his life bouncing between Africa and America. He basically advocated that there needed to be human bridges to carry voices from there to here.

Erik Hersman - SoCap09 from Nathaniel Whittemore on Vimeo.

This is an incredible difficult question. At the Global Engagement Summit I started at Northwestern University, we've allocated about 25% of our budget for the past five years to flying in international participants who wouldn't otherwise be able to participate. That said, our economics were those of an event that is largely paid for by a private university. Most nonprofit conferences have a difficult time just breaking even as it is.

There seems to be an opportunity with social media, livestreaming, and affiliated events (like the new TEDx) series to better tackle this issue head on. Have people seen good examples of getting a more diverse representation at events?