Announcements

The Advancing Foundation Archives (AFA) 2026 organizing committee invites proposals for lightning talks at the group's third conference. AFA 2026 will take place at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City on October 21 & 22, 2026. Registration will open in the coming months with no cost to attendees.  

About the Conference 

Philanthropy archives hold an essential record of how individuals and communities organize, fund, and sustain efforts to address society's most pressing issues. These archives and knowledge systems are facing unique challenges from AI disruption to leadership transitions to sunsetting trends as philanthropies grapple with changing local and global conditions.   

The AFA conference will bring together archives and philanthropy professionals to navigate these challenges, discuss solutions, and shape the future of how foundations manage and preserve their records and share the knowledge in their archives.  

Theme for lightning talks 

The history of a philanthropy is found in its records – the documents, data, and institutional knowledge that tell the story of what they have accomplished and what they have learned. Across departments, and sometimes organizations, people work every day to create, manage, preserve, and draw knowledge and insight from this information.    

But the ground is always shifting. As surely as processes and systems are developed and instituted to support these tasks, change inevitably arrives. It could be a new tool that streamlines a workflow, a reorganization that reshapes responsibilities, a sunsetting deadline that accelerates grant making, or a new goal to share more records, learning, and impact with external groups.    

However change arrives, it asks something of those who steward organizational knowledge. Whether you manage knowledge, information, or archives, we want to hear how you responded. What changed at  your foundation or philanthropic organization, and how did you adapt?  What lessons did you learn? How has your organization emerged better positioned to inform grantmaking, deepen learning, or tell the story of a philanthropy?   

Proposal submission guidelines:   

This panel is a lightning round of 5 to 10 minute presentations.   Submit your proposal via this form. 

Proposals must be submitted by July 15. Those submitting proposals will be notified of selection by July 31. There is no fee to attend the conference.  Presenters will need to arrange their own travel and accommodation. 

 For additional information or questions, email Lori Eaton at  lori.eaton@rcwjrf.org.   

The conference is sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation and the Gates Archive, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the Mellon Foundation, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation.