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2023 Prospera Workplan - Google Jamboard

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Twelfth Noor Hall: Connect, recap and operationalize Noor
March 29th, 2023

Registration & Participants

Board Participants: Joy Chia (Astrea), Virisila Buadromo (UAF A&P) Francoise Moudouthe (AWDF), Kate Kroeger (UAF), Nadejda Dermendjieva, Carla Lopez (FCAM)

Participants Secretariat: Amany Alhadka, Chhavi Doonga, Camila Vasques Mellet, Eugenia Olmos, Kika F.B, Martha Tukahirwa, Nancy Akanbombire, Rebecca Thesiger, Sofia Karakaidou.

Introduction
The first Town Hall for the year took place on the 29th of March 2023 where the Network reconnected again after the Biennial in Oaxaca last December. Prospera continues to use the Town Halls as spaces to connect and reconnect with each other and to build stronger communication flow within the Network.

Objective of the Town Hall
At the end of the Biennial in Oaxaca last year, there were proposals, suggestions and or feedback from the Network of wanting more discussions on some topics, particularly around the Membership Criteria, the Global South/ East/ North, and the definition of Resource Justice. Among other things, the objectives included:

Session Flow

Reconnection and Re-energizing moment
The Session started with Viri from the Board, welcoming everyone into the first Town Hall of the year and a call on all to say hello to each other in our native language-our usual practice and commitment to language justice and then briefly shared the objectives of the Town Hall as listed above. Members were put into breakout rooms to have a moment to connect and share an activity or initiative that their respective fund is planning to do in 2023 that is exciting.
In plenary, these were some of the reflections:

Many funds are going through strategic planning

Leadership transition

Lots of reconnections

Governance
Taking over to share on governance for the next session, Kate made reference to the Biennial in Oaxaca where there were several reflections and requests for more discussions around some topics, particularly the Membership Criteria, the Global South/ East/ North conversations and the definition of Resource Justice. She indicated that Prospera committed to create space for more collective discussions on these. Here is what has happened since December:

The edited Membership Criteria was shared to the membership in January. One comment was provided on this, which has been shared with the Membership Criteria working group to finalize it.

Also in January, an invite was floated for members to join a working group to work on the conversations on Global South/ East/ North. At the moment, there were no sign ups yet.

The secretariat drafted a working definition on Resource Justice based on the group discussions we had on Biennial. This draft was shared with regional clusters to be reviewed and provide comments and feedback. At the moment, 4 funds have shared feedback on this definition.

Everyone is busy and communication can get lost in emails and group messages. So, a zoom poll was conducted in plenary to invite people to sign up to these conversations/working groups.

The results of the Zoom poll were as follows: 33 people voted in representation of 33 funds. Almost half (45.5%) of the funds indicated that they did not have further comments on these discussions. Less than half (33.3%) showed interest to join the working group on Global South, East and North conversations. A few others as shown in the chart wanted to share feedback on the Resource Justice definition and Membership criteria.

Recapping key elements of the Strategic Framework
The next part of the Town Hall led by Francoise was focused on a recap of the key elements of the strategic framework process; a one year long process where Prospera members, board and secretariat, with the support of consultants, collectively worked to build the network's strategic vision and mission for the next decade. She highlighted the expected outcomes of the process as follows:

An identification of Prospera's goals, key strategies, guiding principles, and priorities for the next decade.

A revised and agreed upon mission and vision.

Clarity and agreement on governance, transparency, and accountability mechanisms for the functioning of the network.

An exploration and re-commitment to the values, practices, and principles that guide our work and enable how we work, prioritizing our collective care and wellbeing.

Francoise reminded us all that, at the end of the Noor process and at the Biennial in Oaxaca, the Network collectively adopted the framework and celebrated the successful culmination of the year-long participatory process. "We would like to take this opportunity to recap and remind ourselves what we agreed to be the key elements of our Strategic Framework". Review slides for this section here.

Values Slide: In Phase 1 of Noor, we reviewed our values and practices of our values as guiding principles with which we would like to work together. We used these values throughout the process of Noor as our anchors. When we met in June last year in Mexico city, we committed to keep these values alive while working with each other.

Vision and Mission slide: Our vision and mission as a Network is our shared political agenda. In Phase 2 of Noor, we created these using our collective understanding and analysis of the feminist funding landscape and of the contexts in which we are based.

Strategic Goals Slide: Our values, vision, missions and context analysis guided the Strategic Goals that guide the network in the coming 10 years. In the final phases of Noor, we used the Gradients of Agreement tool to endorse and support our collective vision and goals.

This is a moment of celebration and achievement for our network. This was not an easy process and the successful implementation of this Strategic Framework will require work from each one of us. As we enter 2023 we must stay committed to our collective vision and mission.

Operationalizing the Strategic Framework
An important session after the recap of the key elements was a focus on operationalizing the Strategic Framework. Joy shared that, in order to institutionalize the outcomes from Noor, the Board approved the final Strategic Framework document in the March Board meeting. She also shared that the secretariat will work with a consultant until June to prepare a strategic plan for the next 3 years - of which the plan will be shared with the Network for feedback in the next Town Hall on June, 28th.

Explaining further, Joy drew attention to the fact that some Funds use the term Strategic Framework and Strategic Plan interchangeably. In the context of Noor however, there is an understanding of the "Framework" as a broad or big picture framing of our vision and mission for the next decade whereas the "Plan" is the operationalization of the Framework into a more achievable timeframe and more specific buckets. One way to understand this, she emphasized, was that the Strategic Framework can be broken down in the next 10 years into 3 Strategic Plans for 3-4 years. The Strategic Framework will remain static while the Strategic Plans will continue to be revisited and revised by the network.

The secretariat continued, led by the Executive Committee (Amany, Chhavi and Kika) and shared an interim work plan for 2023 with key buckets of work, projects and programs as well as a calendar of in person events of Prospera. This work plan was created based on the list of activities per strategic goal that the network created and voted for at the Biennial Oaxaca.

After the presentation of the 2023 interim work plan by the Secretariat team, members were moved into breakout rooms to discuss the work plan guided by the following questions:

1. What excites you about this work plan? Are there any activities in the work plan where your fund is not involved and would like to be?

2. Do you see other spaces for collaboration between funds that are missing in this work plan?

3. Are there any activities from your own funds' work planned for this year that align with this workplan or incorporate Prospera's Strategic Goals?

Below are some insights and feedback from the breakout sessions:

What excites you about this work plan?
In general, there was excitement to see all that was talked about, discussed and proposed during the Noor process and at the Biennial reflected in an interim work plan. There was great appreciation from Members to the board and secretariat for the work done so far. And also for listening and putting in measures to address requests and made. These were some of the places of interests for members:

Activities some Funds are not involved and would like to be
Collective action and voice is important in every space within the Network and to ensure this inclusivity, funds were asked if there were some activities/spaces that they were not involved but would like to be. Some of the working groups and programs funds showed interest in joining are listed below:

Funds activities that align with or incorporate Prospera's Strategic Goals.
There were also discussions on activities of funds that align with or incorporate Prospera's Strategic Goals. Some highlights below:

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Twelfth Noor Hall: Connect, recap and operationalize Noor March 29th, 2023 Registration & Participants Board Participants: Joy Chia (Astrea), Virisila Buadromo (UAF A&P) Francoise Moudouthe (AWDF), Kate Kroeger (UAF), Nadejda Dermendjieva, Carla Lopez (FCAM) Participants Secretariat: Amany Alhadka, Chhavi Doonga, Camila Vasques Mellet, Eugenia Olmos, Kika F.B, Martha Tukahirwa, Nancy Akanbombire, Rebecca Thesiger, Sofia Karakaidou.

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Prospers Team Retreat and Workplanning Jan - April 2023 - Google Jamboard

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Prospers Team Retreat and Workplanning Jan - April 2023

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- All donors’ contractual obligations are fulfilled (reports, new proposals…etc.)
- The Battery included the GM for this year.
- KujaLink: to include women's funds
- JustFund: to include women's funds on their platform
- Met with French government, possible entry.
- Potential panel for the Swiss government
- AWID: we are working together for the next where is the money for feminist organizing report

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- The Fenomenal Fund - need to send our key priorities for 2023 to release the grant (similar to the one we did in 2022).
- FFs to send new version of the report from 2022
- Pending: UN Foundation - submit application
- In process: Leila - lightbox is currently working on the paper so we can do a PR strategy for it
- To decide: Fondation Chanel : would like to provide funding to Prospera so funds with smaller budgets can attend advocacy spaces. Offered a booth for WD, which we decided to accept.
- To decide: Hispanics in philanthropy requested to join Prospera

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- Successful Board meeting: All documents were approved in board meeting (Strategic plan, work plan, investment committee, bylaws, ToRs etc)
- Bylaws changes were presented by the lawyer and discussed with the board, ready to move to the approval by the members at the AGM
- We stayed connected with board last 3 months
- Viri and Joy were legally/formally admitted as new members/directors
- The EC appreciated the Ex-Comm and the time we spent to prepare them for the board meeting, and the time we spent to discuss the election saga.
- Loads of appreciation from the Board to the Secretariat
- Quick response to the elections process situation with LATAM - met on the same week we requested them to.

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- Loud appreciation for secretariat’s work in the townhall
- Post Noor “high” – active participation in discussions
- Appreciation for including requests that came up in Noor as part of Prospera's workplan
- It's effective to ask for participation/joining working groups during Townhall
- Recognition and appreciation for how there is more and "clearer" communication coming from the Secretariat about what is happening in Prospera

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- Acceptance of new structure
- Successful transition from peers to supervisors
- Team stepped up a lot in last months; receptive and responsive
- Very supportive and ready to step up to reduce work load of EC
- Good team emotional healt
- January retreat was great! We dedicated time for a proper closure of 2022; process emotions; with that grounding, then we worked on the productive side.
- Consciousness around respecting the Friday off (at least no calls, no messages)

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- Great virtual team retreat prep
- Collective decision making and team work
- Building trust and support on each other; approaching each other to clarify confusion or possible tensions
- Staying connected through slack and weekly check-ins
- Create spaces to share feelings in moments of stress
- Took support from external consultants - Ishita for team retreat; Manu as our collective coach

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- Need to clarify next steps post April

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- Room for Board to take more leadership in network wide discussions like townhall
- New Board members orientation
- Continue building a culture where it's clear to the network that the Board works in benefit of the entire network and not a region only
- How to approach -from the position of the Board- the situation in LATAM and the manipulation towards FAU and FCAM.

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- Need to keep pushing GM group to take decisions

- Need a container for governance processes discussions
- While there is recognition and appreciation for "the more and better" communication, still low participation and answers

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- Continue working on team (some more than others) taking more initiative
- Need to think about the future configuration of the team at large and think strategically about our structure and roles. What’s missing in the mix?
- Are work loads well distributed?
- Place of tension with Camila (Chhavi and Amany have been managing this closely)
- Continue improving our culture of communication (sharing trips, vacation and sick days off with supervisors timely)

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- Need to better manage of workload and zoom fatigue
- March was particularly heavy, how to make sure this work load does not become the norm?

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- Revisit some program timelines as they aren’t where we planned

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- No one from Africa and AP signed up for Racial justice group despite multiple outreach. We only managed to have people sign up during the Townhall. Still no one from AP.
- Only 3 responses from MKS group

- Latam cluster tensions