SmartSimple Blog

On July 10-13^th, SmartSimple attended The USAging Annual Conference and Tradeshow, held in Austin, Texas. This event is the country’s largest gathering of local leaders in aging. Each year, professionals come together with government experts, policymakers, business leaders, and other Aging Network practitioners and partners to share knowledge and new directions in the field of aging.

As conference season heads into full swing, the PEAK Grantmaking Conference takes center stage as one of the keystone events in the grantmaking space.

In 2018, we went to Nashville, Tennessee. In 2019, we went to San Diego, California. In 2020, we’re going to our living rooms. ELEVATE is going fully virtual this year. Over the last six months, we’ve all had to learn how to adapt to new ways of working. This year’s theme for ELEVATE – The Future of Work – is about looking beyond the boundaries of this sea change and focusing on how to not just adapt, but flourish.

Staff collaboration within MS Teams or Slack. Video calls for board meetings. Grant distribution via ACH and Bill.com. This is the “new normal” for philanthropy, and it’s happened in the span of weeks instead of years. Yet, with such a rapid change, how are grantmakers adjusting to a reality where technology is at the center?

In the course of just a few months, our communities across the globe have been fundamentally changed. Every aspect of how we go about our lives has been affected in some way – from healthcare and retail to food service and essential services. As a result, each sector has had to rapidly adjust to an unprecedented, and invisible, threat to normalcy and our previous status quo. Philanthropy is certainly no exception.