Reflections of the 20th Anniversary of the Clinton Global Initiative—The Better Preparedness Initiative is Ready to Meet the Moment

Carolyn Dallmann*

Reflections of the 20th Anniversary of the Clinton Global Initiative—The Better Preparedness Initiative is Ready to Meet the Moment

In September 2024, the Better Preparedness Initiative was selected as a Featured Commitment to Action (CTA) at the Clinton Global Initiative’s (CGI) Annual Meeting in New York, establishing the first-ever field-wide philanthropic infrastructure supporting coordinated crisis response. Humanity United is delighted to have been a part of this work since its inception and have our President and CEO Srik Gopal on stage that day to help announce our ongoing commitment to the work.  

On September 24 and 25, we returned to New York to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of CGI and I could not help but reflect on what has changed in our sector, country, and world, in the interim.  Human rights-focused Official Development Assistance is projected to fall by up to $1.8 million annually by 2026—a 31% drop from 2023 levels; changes to the funding environment for peacebuilders has shifted and decreased; and civil society continues to shrink, eroding democracy globally, with fewer than 7 in 10 people worldwide living in open or free societies.  

We also saw in real time how these concerning shifts are being mirrored in the U.S. as the current administration issued the presidential memorandum “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” just as CGI concluded.  While at face value this memo seeks to focus on curbing political violence, organizations like the ACLU and others have raised valid concerns about how it could be used to target nonprofits, civil society organizations, activists, and foundations.  

Yet, this year’s Annual Meeting’s theme was “What’s Next,” a clear charge for all of us gathered to continue to push forward, collaborate, and create solutions together.  With that in mind, CGI launched Working Groups as an avenue for deeper engagement and strategic partnerships, moving beyond plenary sessions into action.  

I had the opportunity to participate in both the Human Rights and Democracy (focusing on disrupting authoritarian tactics globally) and the Humanitarian Response Working Groups (focusing on catalyzing support to civil society in humanitarian response), and was struck by how clearly each group of leaders and big thinkers identified what needed to be done.  I saw recurring themes of the need for intersectionality, locally driven solutions, and breaking down silos across sectors for collective action to push back against authoritarianism, while also tacking transnational efforts to erode rights (including the anti-rights movement).  I was especially interested in the conversations we had around the need to develop more “intermestic” collaborations—connecting and aligning global and domestic efforts to share learning, tactics, and best practices.  As my colleague Bryan Sims recently wrote, “we need interconnected, intersectional strategies that bridge sectors, communities, and ecosystems—uniting Global Majority and Global North coalitions to confront shared threats and drive collective solutions.”  

In my own work, supporting the Collective Action Assistance Fund (CAAF), an activist-led and advised initiative designed to provide creative and flexible funding and services to nonviolent movements, we’ve been exploring how we can encourage networking and collaboration amongst our international partners and groups working on similar issues in the United States.  Movements from around the world have decades of experience, tactics, and strategies to share, and we are eager to find ways to support that exchange at this truly pivotal moment in time.

Despite the excitement around potential collaboration, CGI working groups still struggled to move from our agreement on what needs to happen into collective, solutions-based, coordinated action.  We simply are not nearly as well-organized as the authoritarians causing the democratic erosion we are trying to counter…yet. 

Lucky for us, this is where BPI comes in.  BPI’s Crisis Coordination Playbook, is a how-to guide for foundations to act, coordinate, and move resources to civil society under threat from human rights crisis and civic space challenges.  The playbook has already been put into practice by several funders supporting work in contexts like in funding for Afghanistan, Palestine, Georgia, and the United States, proving that BPI can be a central hub for strategy and coordination, implementing bold responses to real challenges.  BPI brings together funders – from human rights, peace and security, and humanitarian sectors – and social movements to drive significant resources to those on the frontlines of crisis and closing civic space, making it a perfect space to explore intermestic efforts for collaboration globally. 

We have the tools, so let’s get to work, together.

About the author

* Carolyn Dallmann is the Senior Manager for Peacebuilding & Partnerships at Humanity United, focusing on the efforts of the Collective Action Assistance Fund (CAAF), an activist-led and advised initiative of Humanity United Charitable Fund.  Prior to joining Humanity United, Carolyn worked for over a decade in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.