New Partnerships Formed, New Projects Inspired at 2009 Annual Meeting

All year long, CGI works to create partnerships that will change lives around the world. At the Annual Meeting, that process is accelerated, as members meet each other at panels, impromptu gatherings, and social events throughout the week.

For Roger Neugebauer of the World Forum Foundation, it was a game-changing event. “This has been the most important week in the history of the World Forum Foundation,” he wrote to CGI. “What’s been amazing is all the partnerships I have been able to cement here. This has exceeded my wildest dreams (and I have some pretty wild dreams).”

The World Forum Foundation organizes adults into Community Teams, which lead local campaigns to reconnect children with nature. Before CGI’s Annual Meeting, Neugebauer used CGI Connect to send messages to organizations he thought would be interested in this work.

At the event, he was able to connect with the majority of those people, and many of them signed on to help. Fundacion Paraguaya, Paso Pacifico, and the SOUL Foundation, among others, have agreed to organize Community Teams. “It has been an awesome connecting experience,” Neugebauer wrote.

Other members were inspired by the Annual Meeting to create entirely new commitments. One member, inspired by remarks by Dr. Wangari Mathaai, anonymously committed to help Mathaai’s organization and to fund cataract surgeries for more than 300 individuals.

While attending the Action Network session on human trafficking and slavery, Jim Greenbaum realized that he could use his contacts and resources to make a difference. He will commit to put the issue on the map of the Young Presidents’ Organization, and to work to get all YPO member companies to ensure that their supply chains are not using child or slave labor.

Mouhsine Serrar, founder of Prakti Design Labs, came to the Annual Meeting to find partners for his commitment to distribute fuel efficient cookstoves in India. During the event, he decided to make a totally new commitment around developing fuel efficient stoves in Haiti – and found a range of implementation and funding partners, who will help make it possible.

In total, 284 commitments were made this year, valued at $9.4 billion. Once these commitments are fully implemented, 30 million children will gain access to education, seven million people will have access to clean energy, and 18 million people will have safer drinking water. CGI members have committed to improve health care for 83 million people, and cut 30 million metric tons of carbon emissions.