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The Thousand Currents Academy started as a response to a mandate from our international partners to promote transformative, culturally competent, human-rights-focused, and social-justice-based approaches to philanthropic partnerships with communities in the Global South.

Our vision is for the Academy to serve as a launchpad for the growing network of graduates to work in creative, collaborative, and courageous ways to tackle the root causes of inequity and injustice the world over.

In our daily lives, we are contending with the existential and practical implications of our political and economic systems for people and the planet. Borne out of these unequal structures, philanthropy, as a vessel of resources, is fraught with tensions. That is why we need thoughtful, grounded leaders in philanthropy who are committed to the bold transformation of our sector.

 

What are the goals of the Thousand Currents Academy?

  • Grounding in history, agency, body, and vision
  • Connect philanthropists and impact investors to grassroots wisdom holding ancestral knowledge
  • Align practices with learning and transformation
  • Uplift grassroots solutions tackling the root causes of the climate crisis

 

What’s unique about the Thousand Currents Academy?

  • Global South grassroots faculty
  • Innovative learning modalities that embraces openness and experimentation
  • Built on a 37-year history of tried and trusted grantmaking practice
  • Embraces language justice principles
  • Rooted in Global South, Indigenous and radical Black feminist traditions and knowledge

What People Are Saying

“Listening without agenda, interruption, or redirection is actually a sophisticated skill set. What if we routinely practiced deep listening with partners—and were willing to shift our agendas based on what we hear?” -Pia Infante, Academy Faculty ​​
“I felt supported through a process of deep transformation that only just started at the Academy and will continue for years to come. -Christen Dobson
“The whole retreat serves as a reminder, demonstration, that we must dig into ourselves for collective liberation to work.” -Pierce Delahunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn more about our 2024 Academy “Building Solidarity with Global Movements.”

Still have questions? Email Crystal Des-Ogugua, Thousand Currents’ Donor Education Manager.

-Adriana Garcia, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

My Academy Experience

"It was very important for me to come to an Academy, a training like this one, where I could learn firsthand from people doing this important work in different parts of the world and learn directly from them what's working, what's not working, what do they need from funders."

-Adriana Garcia, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation