Beyond Athens

In 2016, the Conference traveled outside Athens for the first time, to Thessaloniki, a cosmopolitan setting in Northern Greece that reflected both the global scope of the Conference and its specific focus that year on philanthropic activity in the Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe.

This fifth Annual SNF International Conference on Philanthropy, as it was then known, examined the diverse and ongoing geopolitical challenges of Southeastern Europe. The Mediterranean in Crisis: Seeking Global Solutions to Critical Regional and Local Issues featured a cross-disciplinary program of expert discussions, broaching topics from cultural heritage to health systems, the strength of democracy, and the role of the arts in conflict-torn areas. A film screening with its creators and a performance by a youth symphony orchestra added depth of field.

By 2016, construction on all of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center’s (SNFCC) spaces was complete and the surrounding landscape had completely transformed. A cultural happening entitled “Metamorphosis: The SNFCC to the World” invited the public to explore the SNFCC we know and love today—a space open, accessible, and welcoming to all—and hosted artists from all over the world. The program of events included guided tours, concerts, art installations and performances and, of course, the SNF Run.

Sustainability in focus

The fourth Annual SNF International Conference on Philanthropy—as it was called back then—tackled the topic of Philanthropy and Sustainability, understood in two distinct senses: How can philanthropy help advance environmental sustainability efforts in communities, in food systems, in social welfare frameworks? And what do sustainable philanthropic thinking and grantmaking look like?

To help sustain and extend the important work achieved by grantee-partners addressing the effects of Greece’s painful socioeconomic crisis, SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos announced an additional €100+ million grant to the same end.

In parallel, the public got a look at sustainable design in action as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) rose in Athens.

What would become an indelible link between the Conference and the SNFCC began in 2015 with a program of offerings at the still-under-construction cultural center with something for everyone—the precursor of what would eventually evolve into SNF Nostos.

For the first time, Stavros Niarchos Park opened its gates and the public could access and enjoy the SNFCC. Events combining music with photography, architecture with the environment, and overnight screenings with art kicked off early in the afternoon and lasted until dawn, through 4 days and nights of events at Stavros Niarchos Park called Light Up the Night.

The first evening run, the SNF Run: Running Towards the Future, organized in collaboration with nonprofit Regeneration & Progress, started at the Panathenaic Stadium and finished at the SNFCC, connecting the center of the city with the new Athenian landmark under construction. A major milestone of the year was the big concert prepared by Dionysis Savvopoulos for the celebration of World Music Day.

Widening the focus

With contributions from around 90 speakers from Greece and abroad across 20 panel discussions, the third SNF International Conference on Philanthropy, as it was then titled, represented an increasingly broad and ambitious iteration of the event that appealed to a wider range of attendees. It focused on three key themes, distinct from one another but all related to grantmaking:

• Recharging the Youth: Youth Unemployment and Initiatives to Create New Opportunities for the Young
• Philanthropy and Ethics
• Arts & Culture: Creative Assets and their Socioeconomic Impact

Shifting the social welfare paradigm

The second Annual SNF International Conference on Philanthropy focused on the Role of Philanthropy within a Social Welfare Society. Covering a range of specific areas from health care accessibility to volunteerism to microfinance, the Conference looked, in practical terms, at how philanthropy might be able to best contribute if we reframe from thinking about “social welfare states” to “social welfare societies.” Speakers included economist Anders Åslund, Greek Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni, and Open Society Foundations founder George Soros.

Convening peers to help address an urgent need

SNF’s first conference, organized in collaboration with the European Foundation Centre, was convened to help answer a very specific question: what role could foundations play to help mitigate the effects of Europe’s ongoing socioeconomic crisis, which had cut particularly deep in Greece? The conference brought together other grantmaking foundations, as well as experts in the field to examine short- and long-term needs using Greece and Southern European countries as case studies.