WISE Fund To Hold Women’s Summit, Launches Global Initiatives For Post-COVID Recovery

By Tobi Awodipe
To round up this year’s Black Philanthropy Month, which kicked off on the first, the Women Invested to Save Earth (WISE) Fund will be hosting a virtual summit themed, Reunity™: The Pan-African Women’s Philanthropy Network Summit this Saturday.

Produced by WISE Fund, Reunity™ is a global community, rally and revival of black women funders and innovators from philanthropy, social impact investing and venture capital designed to build diverse black women’s networks, learning, energy, and spirits as they lead the social justice movement while working and caring for families, especially in the uniquely stressful conditions of the pandemic recession’s impact on our communities. “Although often unheralded and invisible, black women are the backbone of their communities’ social change innovation. A one-day virtual summit, Reunity is designed to honour, rally, coach and revive the very stressed black and African women who create a better future through their philanthropy, social investment, venture capital, volunteerism, activism, and caregiving” says Dr Jacqueline Bouvier Copeland, Reunity, Black Philanthropy Month and The WISE Fund Founder.
She went on to add that they will commemorate the end of a thoroughly impactful month with the summit to celebrate African women and launch a global effort to encourage funding of innovative, social justice, health and economic development initiatives for post-COVID recovery in African-descent communities.
Black Philanthropy Month officially launched on August 1st with the Black Giving and Beyond summit followed by an African kick off on the 4th and 5th of August. With over 40 exceptional speakers and hundreds of participants from more than 35 countries, the summit generated engaged discussion and new ideas to promote equitable justice and COVID-19 recovery funding for black people everywhere. The platform also moved beyond talking to action with key stakeholders refining the 12-point new black funding principles that have emerged from the summit proceedings so far.
Keynote speakers include Dr Copeland, Kwanza Jones, co-founder/CEO, Supercharged Initiative; Natalia Kanem, MD, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund; Reverend Canon Nontombi Naomi Tutu, The Episcopal Church; Caretha Coleman, Chairman, Dignity Community Health; Congresswoman Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, Trista Harris, Founder and CEO, FutureGood; Christal Jackson, Founder and CEO, Head and Heart Philanthropy; Salome Lemma, President and CEO, A Thousand Currents; Latanya Mapp Frett, President and CEO, Global Fund for Women; Nompumelelo Mungi Ngomane, author, Everyday Ubuntu and Susan Taylor Batten, President and CEO, Association of Black Foundation Executives. Speakers will do extended audience questions and discussion, operating as coaches to help attendees on their leadership and wellness journeys.
The summit will engender hope, foresight, community, learning, new relationships, and wellness among diverse black women, as all are called to lead new social, economic and environmental justice movements everywhere. The event includes stress management coaching by wellness educator, Sherrell Moore-Tucker, author of Meditate Like a Boss. The summit will end with a virtual party led by renowned @DJRedCorvette aka Carmena Woodward, co-founder, and COO, Women Sound Off Music Festival.
Registration is free and open to the public across the world and the first 100 registrants for the summit will receive complimentary e-book copies of Everyday Ubuntu by Mungi Ngomane, a treatise on the ancient indigenous African philosophy for giving and living, meaning “I am because you are,” applied for contemporary.