After a series of excellent workshops over the past six months spanning SE Asia, the Americas and in the UK, the Future Agenda team is now reaching the end of our discussions on the future of high impact philanthropy. The final workshop, which is kindly hosted by Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), will be held on 24^th September at the Emirates Towers in Dubai. 25 representatives from the world of business, government, academia and NGOs will come together. All experts in their field, they are keen to share, challenge and build on the insights that have been created to date.

Future Agenda is proud to have the support of MBRGI because its ambitions are aligned with the motivation for the research. The foundation aims to improve the Arab world through humanitarian, developmental and community work. It comprises four sectors that are essential for improving human life: combating poverty and disease, spreading knowledge, empowering communities, and entrepreneurship and innovation for the future.

Previous events in this series have been hosted by organisations including the LIEN Centre for Social Innovation at SMU in Singapore, The Fore, New Philanthropy Capital and the British Asian Trust in London, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford and Global Giving / Feedback Labs in Washington DC plus others in KL, Mumbai and Quito. We are grateful for their continued support. From the nine workshops and additional research we have a very good perspective of not only the key challenges and concerns around the future of philanthropy, but also many of the opportunities for change. Key areas of attention to date have included impact, efficiency collaboration, transparency, focus and engagement.

We will be compiling the final report for sharing later in the year and also kicking off a series of follow-up workshops exploring the implications for a specific region or issue. The first of these is taking place on the 25^th September, again in Dubai, and is hosted by The Pearl Initiative. If you are interested in hosting one of these follow on workshops in your region, do let us know