WINGSForum 2026 | ACT

The theme of WINGSForum 2026, ACT, reflects the urgent need for philanthropy to move from intention to practical action in response to the profound challenges facing people and the planet.

We have no shortage of analysis, dialogue, or evidence. What we need now is coordinated and practical action.

Across our field and societies, we feel a growing sense that we now need to act with urgency, courage, and hope. We know that if we want to see change in our economic, governance, cultural, and ecological systems, philanthropy must also change. And we know what it requires: acting as an equal partner alongside communities and those leading change on the ground; aligning our resources with purpose; committing to long-term, holistic approaches; working across sectors with ambition and humility; addressing root causes rather than symptoms; and strengthening the networks and relationships that make collective action possible.

Now is the time to act. 

Building on the work of past WINGSForums, this year’s edition will support participants in identifying practical levers for individual and collective action, and in strengthening their ability to shape organisations, practices, and partnerships toward the change we want to see.

The programme will offer inspiration and practical tools, create space for honest dialogue, encourage concrete commitments, strengthen relationships, and advance shared priorities.

WINGSForum 2026 will welcome a broad range of people working in and around philanthropy who are committed to strengthening its role in society. Participants will engage with ideas and practices emerging across regions that can help philanthropy respond in ways that are thoughtful, coordinated, and effective.

Activate

Awakening collective will

Too often, even our best intentions stall when barriers keep us from taking action at the scale this moment demands. Philanthropy’s independence and flexibility are strengths that enable it to catalyse collaboration and provide meaningful support to communities. But in the current global context, these strengths risk becoming our weaknesses if short-term delivery, neutrality, and fragmentation take precedence over courageous, coordinated action.

This pathway explores how philanthropy can move from intention to impactful action by reclaiming collective will and expanding how we shape the conditions that enable change. Through storytelling, advocacy strategy, and policy engagement, we will examine how participants use their voice, influence decision-making, and help protect the civic and institutional space needed for long-term change.

Grounded in today’s socio-political and geopolitical realities, participants will reflect on deep questions for our field: How do we cultivate the conditions that foster change and strengthen accountability? How do we unlock political will, conditions, and incentives to influence a positive transformation? What risks and responsibilities is philanthropy willing to take?  What role should philanthropy play in shaping governance and public policy, and how can it do so with transparency and accountability? Participants will examine how intentions translate into practice, how to overcome challenges, and how to activate levers to action—both practical and strategic, individual and collective—that will lead to impact, resilience, and positive transformation.

Collaborate

Moving from alignment to joint action

Philanthropy has a unique advantage in leveraging its independence, flexibility, networks, and convening power to enable others and support collaboration. This includes supporting community organisations, peers, and partners across sectors, including government and business, to contribute to change at a greater scale.

This pathway highlights practical approaches to cross-sector collaboration that bring together different sectors, types of organisations, and communities as equal partners in change. It will showcase multi-stakeholder, cross-sector efforts—from cities and public institutions to movements and businesses—and ask how philanthropy can engage alongside others without lowering its ambitions or stepping away from difficult conversations.

Discussions will explore what helps collaboration succeed in real settings: how power is shared, how communities are centred, how independence and mutual accountability are maintained, what partnership and financing models support joint ownership, and how shared goals can translate into shared action on challenges no single actor can address alone.

Participants will also reflect on the enabling conditions for these innovations to spread and become the norm.

Transcend

Strengthening the ecosystems for sustained impact

For collective will to translate into sustained action, and for collaboration to take root and grow, philanthropy needs strong support systems: organisations, networks, and knowledge systems that ensure effective action over the long term. Recent disruptions to aid systems and the shrinking of civic space have shown how essential philanthropy support ecosystems are to moving resources to communities, strengthening the resilience and independence of local actors and social purpose organisations, and enabling the sector to learn, adapt, and respond at the pace today’s crises of inequality, climate and environmental collapse, tech disruption, and democratic backsliding demand.

This pathway will explore questions such as: What does a resilient and adaptive philanthropy ecosystem capable of driving systems change look like? How can philanthropy move from funding isolated initiatives to enabling aligned, system-wide impact? What capabilities, institutions, and partnerships must we strengthen to sustain long-term transformation? How can philanthropy unlock greater resources while deepening lasting social impact?

This pathway draws on Indigenous and grassroots perspectives and explores how we can transcend siloes and move towards true ecosystem thinking and action, rooted in contribution rather than attribution, reciprocity, holistic impact, place-based approaches, and local accountability.

The Garden of Experimentation

Personal reflection is an important part of individual and collective action. Our ability, as people working in philanthropy today, to move from intention to action depends on our willingness to reflect and to integrate new ways of seeing into our everyday decisions.

The Garden of Experimentation is a dedicated space for each individual to reflect deeply on what we have learned and been exposed to, and to explore the dilemmas and inspirations this introduces into our work. 

Through the Garden of Experimentation, WINGSForum 2026 will include a dedicated space for participants to pause, learn, and reconnect with their own motivations and leadership journeys.

Programme details

The full programme will be available closer to the event. A PDF version will also be provided. All attendees will have access to the event app, which will include updates, session information, networking tools, and additional resources.

Speakers

The speaker lineup for WINGSForum 2026 will include leaders, practitioners, and experts from across the global philanthropy ecosystem.

WINGSForum 2026 will take place in Montréal, also known as Tiohtià:ke in Kanien’kéha (Mohawk), a place that has long served as a site of meeting and exchange among many First Nations, including the Haudenosaunee, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinabeg.

Montréal is located on the unceded and unsurrendered traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Nation, custodians and caretakers of these lands and waters. We acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous Peoples whose presence continues to shape this place where people from around the world now gather.