The Editor's Post: The impact sector’s love-hate relationship with conferences
In Pioneers Post this week, Bonnie Chiu and Peter Ptashko argue that impact conferences could achieve much more by changing models. Many in the sector privately agree with them; thanfully some events are already showing what bold innovation can achieve.
This week, in the first article of a new mini-series, Bonnie Chiu and Peter Ptashko ask a provocative question: are impact conferences a waste of time and money? Many times, a conference’s aim becomes the conference itself, they argue, while it should instead be “what we choose to do once we leave that space – connection, action and real impact – together”.
Chiu and Ptashko say out loud what a lot of people are discussing privately. At a conference last year, one delegate bemoaned that the sector seemed obsessed with convenings: in Asia alone, where they operate, they numbered as many as 60 per year. Those events too often gathered the same people, having the same conversations, they argued, and rarely led to concrete outcomes.
Meanwhile, countless pay-to-speak panels, where organisations sponsor events so that they can be featured on the main stage, have disillusioned many conference regulars. And I hear many people ask: could the (at times large) budgets committed to these events be better used to fund impact on the ground?
Who is not invited (or can't afford the ticket) also matters: people close to the work on the ground are too rarely involved, say Chiu and Ptashko, and this unintentionally perpetuates power inequalities.
But there is a reason why few people express those criticisms publicly: they need the conferences. What other opportunities do members of the impact community have to meet each other “in real life”, get hold of an otherwise elusive CEO, or get a chance to pitch their work to key funders? Yes, this kind of networking is often transactional, and people are a bit stuck in a format that doesn’t serve their purpose well, but at times it does yield real-life results.
Importantly, many events and gatherings are already innovating and experimenting with new formats to include new voices and build lasting impact. Helen Harvey from the Social Enterprise World Forum wrote on Linkedin that SEWF was launched (in 2008) in response to many of the criticisms raised in the article – “built by social enterprise, for social enterprise”.
Last week, my colleague David Lyons was in Amsterdam for the Euclid Network Impact Summit, which included visits to some of the city’s social enterprises to share experiences and learn first hand about the municipality's social innovation initiatives. (Read about what he learned in his report published today).
Some events target smaller audiences for deep impact – such as the Rural Social Enterprise Gathering in Malaysia, which David also attended. He explains how two days of field visits, a very focused theme and a manageable group of attendees enabled people to build meaningful partnerships rather than just talking about how great their organisation was.
At the other end of the scale is the giga conference that is ChangeNOW, which I have attended several times. It goes a long way in terms of including as many stakeholders as possible: with formats including workshops, pitching sessions, exhibitions, and a jobs fair, to name a few, the event brings to the table a rare range of actors, from activists and Indigenous leaders to social entrepreneurs, investors and the general public.
According to their impact report 2024, nine out of 10 of those participants say they have been connected to the right stakeholders to increase their impact thanks to the event. And a total of 58 impact funds have raised €7.2bn thanks to dedicated pitching sessions at the conference. We're proud to be media partners for the next edition – if you’re attending I’d be keen to meet you and hear about your own experience.
As journalists reporting on the impact sector, we get invited to many conferences. They are incredibly useful for us to gauge the mood of the sector, identify people’s priorities and build those human connections that are so central to our work. I agree with Chiu and Ptashko that impact conferences shouldn’t be an end in and of themselves and that their resulting impact is really what matters; the good news is that it’s already happening in some instances. Now we need similar innovation, experimentation and risk-taking across the sector.
This week's top stories:
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Are social impact conferences a waste of time and money?
The Impact World this Week: 20 March 2026
Top image: Freepik.
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