Keystone will be taking part at the 2009 Conference organised by NONIE, 3ie and AfrEA on impact evaluation. The conference titled Perspectives on Impact Evaluation: Approaches to Assessing Development Effectiveness will bring together development practitioners, policy makers, academics, evaluators and funders from all over the world " to share practical experiences, discuss innovations, craft new ways to collaborate and devise plans to improve policy and practice."

David Bonbright and Alex Jacobs give presentations on Keystones new methods, 'Aligning constituency voice with performance reporting'.

To visit the Forum website click here

The second meeting of the GAN-Net Impact Community of Practice (ICOP) will be taking place on August 26-27 in The Hague and will be hosted by the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict. 

ICOP is co-lead by Keystone and GAN-Net and is made up of people who represent global action networks (GANs) – global, multi-stakeholder, inter-organizational change networks. There are currently only 4-5 dozen such organizations in the world. They include: Transparency International, Microcredit Summit Campaign, Global Partnership to Prevent Armed Conflict, Forest Stewardship Council.

Keystone will be represented at this year's International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) conference to be held in Barcelona by Research Associate and Advisor Natalia Kiryttopoulou. ISTR is the major international membership association and recognized leader promoting research and education in the fields of civil society, philanthropy, voluntarism and the non-profit sector. The conference's theme is "The Third Sector and Sustainable Social Change: New Frontiers for Research".

DELIVERING IMPACT AS A PRIVATE FUNDER

David Bonbright, Keystone's Chief Executive, attended this year's 'Partnerships for Development' Forum at Wilton Park and presented a panel, next to Gerard Salole of the European Foundations Centre and Tina Wallace of the International Gender Studies Centre at Oxford.

The panel entitled: 'Delivering Impact as a Private Funder' took place on April 17th at 9am and addressed the following questions:

- What are the challenges of delivering impact as a private funder?

- How can funders best address issues such as accountability, transparency, aid effectiveness, and building capacity in-country?

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHAT’S THE IMPACT

OF THIS ALL?

Keystone's Chief Executive, David Bonbright, will be participating in this year's Skoll Forum on Social Entrepreneurship and sitting on the panel of this interactive session that will explore various approaches to assessing impact and leveraging these efforts to attract resources and drive organisational learning. Panellists and public will try to answer key questions including: Who are the real audiences for impact assessment efforts? Who really cares and is it worth the bother? What happens in practice when social entrepreneurs are systematic about measuring impact? How does this lead to organisational learning, increased impact and innovation, or to greater resource mobilisation?

The GuideStar International Assembly took place in London on 19-20 September 2007. Around the theme of "Transparency, Civil Society and Effective States in the Information Age", representatives from civil society organisations, public aid agencies and private foundations debated on the possibilities offered by the information technologies for improving the transparency and accountability of civil society across the globe.

Keystone was represented at the event by David Bonbright who contributed to the panel titled: "To evolve a Global Reporting Framework" - an open discussion of the opportunities for, limitations and wisdom of and programme required to generate a consensus global framework for CSO reporting. 

On Saturday 26 May 2007, Keystone in collaboration with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) presented a training workshop during the CIVICUS 2007 World Assembly in Glasgow. The workshop titled: “Working with new approaches to monitoring, evaluation and accountability for sustainable social change”  was facilitated by Keystone Senior Advisor Andre Proctor and brought together 20 organisations from around the world serious about applying new ways to plan, learn and account for the impact they have on the well-being of the people they work with and for.

Read David Bonbright's speech from the International Seminar on Civil Society and Accountability in Montevideo, 16-17 April 2007, where he was invited to be keynote speaker.

Featured in Alliance Magazine (March 07), David reviews Joel Fleishman's book which argues that foundations must start operating more openly or risk drawing increased public skepticism and government regulation.