Since 2013, the Taproot Foundation and the BMW Foundation have gathered leaders in the pro bono movement to share challenges and best practices with their peers.  The format and location of the Summit changes each year to meet the diverse needs of participants.

After a three-year hiatus, the Global Pro Bono Summit 2023 will finally return to presence from November 29 to December 03, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan. The Summit attracts CSR and HR leaders, foundations, government officials and pro bono movement leaders from over 30 countries. The Summit challenges pro bono movement leaders to find ways to increase their impact and hold each other accountable for doing and promoting pro bono work that drives social change. This year, the summit is hosted by Service Grant Japan.

Participants include members of the Global Pro Bono Network who are pro bono providers (“intermediaries”) and belong to the Global Pro Bono Network, as well as leading corporations, foundations, and governments that offer pro bono programs. Participants seek to collaborate with peers and partners, share their knowledge of pro bono and their sector to develop strategies that deliver high-quality, high-impact pro bono services to address larger global challenges. Ideas and themes that emerge over the course of these three days will be turned into actionable commitments for the coming year.

For more information on the program, click here.

If you would like more information, to attend or sponsor the Summit, please contact us.

From October 13th  to 15th, the Global Pro Bono Network members took part in the 8th edition Global Pro Bono Summit 2020, an event of the Global Pro Bono Network organized this year by Pro Bono Lab.

For this 100% digital edition, there were more than 330 registrations, about 50 participating avatars following the summit life for three days and ten hours of discussions. This enthusiasm and the speeches of the 40 speakers confirmed that the pro bono has a nice future! And that in order to develop the practice and have more impact, we have everything to gain from learning from each other.

If you missed a session or would like to see again? The replays are available on our YouTube channel

(Re) Discover the first results of the International Overview of Pro Bono Intermediaries as well as the interactive map developed for the occasion!

Let’s meet in 2021 for the restitution of the full study.

Esther, AMAIDI Regional Coordinator for Europe, was delighted to attend the 6th Global Pro Bono Summit (GPBS), which took place in Mumbai from 6 to 9 February 2018. The Global Pro Bono Summit is designed as a combination of two conventions – one focused on developing and strengthening the Global Pro Bono Network and the other bringing together pro bono leaders – members, foundations, corporate and professional pro bono leaders – to share and work together to grow the pro bono movement worldwide.

Bar Camps at the City Hall

The 2^nd day of the conference explored a range of themes in the bar camp format. Bar camp served as an open space for discussions, demonstrations and peer learning across a variety of topics. We had the opportunity to pitch an idea, initiative, challenge etc to the group. They will then be offered a time-slot to join a fruitful conversation for discussion. A couple of interesting ones were

1. How can technological platforms be used to scale the impact of probono
2. How can pro bono be integrated into talent development programs effectively
3. Pros & Cons of the different pro bono formats.
4. In the CSR 3.0 Purpose & Services
5. Difference between Pro Bono Marathons and Pro Bono Hackathons
6. Quality Criteria of Pro Bono services
7. How to build good relations between Pro bono intermediares and Corporate Networks

Sitting in on various session brought interesting insights across a board range of topics:

• In building a pro bono tech platform, build it ground up i.e. build the process and user experience first before building the technology that will enable that. Be prepared to do all the work manually while you are building the processes and always always handhold your users through the different facets of the process. Half the battle is in convincing NPOs to trust the system and showing them the value of actively engaging on such a platform.
• Weaving pro bono into talent development programs requires a standardization of experiences across multiple participants and projects. It is a natural fit but intermediaries looking to build such a program will need to pay extra attention (or get creative) about how to meet both the social aims and the learning and development goals of such a program.
• In the CSR 3.0 Purpose & Services, we talked about the evolution of CSR from CSR 1.0 (employee engagement by painting walls) via CSR 2.0 (pro bono or skilled based corporate volunteering) and CSR 3.0 (about purpose)
• etc.

On the 2nd Day we visited the organization Centers of Digital Inclusion (CDI)

CDI’s mission is to mobilize individuals, transform communities and improve quality of life through technology. This is achieved through one of their projects, Apps for Good, where students and teachers work together in creating ideas of apps, i.e. small software programs that change the world and challenge the status quo.

CDI is the Portuguese chapter of the international organization Apps for Good.  Apps for Good is an open-source technology education movement that partners with educators in schools and learning centers to deliver our course to young people 10-18 years of age. They provide the course content, training and connections to our Expert volunteers, and then let teachers do what they are best at – inspiring and guiding young people. In the course, students work together as teams to find real issues they care about and learn to build a mobile, web or social app to solve them. Like professional entrepreneurs, students go through all key aspects of new product development, from idea generation, technical feasibility and programming to product design, deciding on business models and marketing. In Apps for Good, they train teachers and other educators to work locally with young people but also match them with professional designers, developers and entrepreneurs who volunteer their time and skills through our Expert Community to advise young people in their app ideas.

João Baracho (Director Executivo) gave us an insight in CDI and its projects. We had the opportunity to listen to a group of 16 year old students who developed an App that makes suggestion on meals made on what is left in your cupboard or fridge. Therefore they collected some recipes, created a database of ingredients. They even included a shopping list function if you have to buy missing ingredients for a meal. The App provides two ways of using it. One is based on what is based in cupboard, fridge or freezer, f.e. you have milk, 2 eggs, flour and bacon. The search result is omelette or pancakes. The reason why develop the app, was that they discovered that it is easy for their parents to buy groceries, but if the kids ask ” What’s for dinner, mum?” Their parents sometimes did not know what to cook.