The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is BACK! And not a moment too soon! Read on for 4 takeaways you can use, whether or not you attended CGI, to support your social impact work.
Like many on outbound flights from New York last week, after marveling at the spectacularly reimagined LaGuardia, I spent most of my flight home awash in a flood of enthusiasm about solving the challenges highlighted at this year’s CGI September meeting, which was back after a 6 year hiatus.
It was as nice to be back in that headspace again as it was to see the Big Apple after a pandemic-induced travel pause.
I suspect the same was true for other CGI attendees, as well as those attending Concordia, Bloomberg, Climate Week, and other events wrapped around UN General Assembly.
Despite my efforts to follow my own advice about avoiding confusion and overwhelm when attending CGI, I was nonetheless overwhelmed by the challenges, opportunities, and calls to action swimming in my head.
Events like CGI bring into stark relief just how many serious challenges face every part of our world–from a seemingly endless series of “100 year” climate-related catastrophes to a persistently pesky pandemic, geopolitical strife, and attacks on democracy and challenges to the rule of law.
The list is endless, there is much to do, and we all have a role to play.
And the good news is that CGI is about the doers, the solutions, the fact that (to borrow from Einstein) “in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
And so, not a moment too soon, CGI returned and reignited its focus on the work of those committed to “the how” of the solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
I’ve been in - and supporting - this work for a long time now. From my time as a corporate lawyer turned philanthropy program manager turned general counsel of the Clinton Foundation, to the past 7 years leading social impact consulting firm Beyond Advisers, we’ve seen a lot. And we’ve had the privilege of supporting the world’s most dynamic innovators in their impact-driven work designed to make the world a better place in new, specific, and measurable ways.
Despite that experience, including more than a decade of prior CGI attendance, I was more invigorated than ever about being part of the solutions that are so critical to moving us from where we are to where we want to be.
Here’s what CGI reinforced for me, and what it can for you too.
Optimism matters - The star of the show of CGI 2022 was optimism. It was found in the smiling, future-focused, action-oriented faces and examples of those on stage from the hosts, to featured commitment makers, to plenary and panel participants, including President Zelenskyy of Ukraine himself. The common thread throughout was optimism, even in the face of stark and sobering challenges. And this matters. The world’s challenges are many. The related concerns are real and the associated pessimism is understandable. But the optimism that we can, should, and must address these challenges with action and solutions-focused mindsets was a breath of fresh air at a time when we all feel suffocated by too many years of negativity and focus on the challenges littering the road behind us and ahead. An optimistic mindset doesn’t overlook the realities of our challenges, but allows us to believe in the solutions.
Solutions matter more - It’s easy to spend time focused on problems, their seeming insurmountability, the interconnectedness of complications that fixing one problem may not be enough when others lurk behind every solution. But the CGI crowd is one focused on solutions to intractable problems at the heart of their work, and you uniquely find solutions-obsessed doers in these halls, at your table, and in every introduction to the person you meet next. And that’s invigorating. Conversation revolves around what you’re working on in ways that actually move the proverbial needle from problem to solution. That’s rocket fuel for work that needs to go fast and far to help us break free of the pull of the gravity of the challenges themselves.
“The How” matters most - CGI’s theme and focus was “the how” of solutions. There’s no shortage of conferences that focus on what our challenges are and why they need to be addressed, but CGI uniquely focuses on “the how.” This is where the rubber meets the road of actual change. Wrapping the focus around “the how” of solutions recalibrates the entire event, every plenary, breakout, and coffee chat from talking to doing, reveals roadmaps to solutions, and calls to action for others to join in the pursuit of solutions through their own commitment to action.
Commitments to Action remain the CGI magic - Most notably, “the how” is found in Commitments To Action - the very lifeblood of CGI’s unique (and competitive) advantage. CGI’s origin story is that it resulted from frustration that the right people come together at glitzy, invite-only conferences to talk about the what and why of the world’s most intractable challenges but came up painfully short on moving the needle to address them. Then that same group would usually come back the following year to do it all over again. So CGI was born with the model of requiring each attendee to make a Commitment To Action (CTA) of their choice on the issue of their focus - the only requirement being that the CTA be new, specific, and measurable (i.e. not a mere repackaging of existing efforts). And there were accountability mechanisms built into it. While this year’s reboot of the September meeting didn’t include a strict requirement of attendees to make a CTA, they were still front and center, driving the focus and “the how” theme to cause every attendee to wrap their experience around their own CTAs.
As humans on earth, we’re all facing a foreboding set of challenges that can be overwhelming if we let it. But when optimism fuels recalibrated thinking about the role each of us can play in solving those pressing challenges, we’re individually and collectively empowered to commit our days in tangible pursuit of solutions that are more critically important than ever.
We all get the same 24 hours in a day. What we do with them matters. Committing to take action on “the how” is a great way to spend your day. Whether or not you attended CGI, you can use the same action-focused approach to calibrate thinking around how you can make a difference too.
When I landed back in Chicago, I wasn’t just off the plane in a hurry en route to my Lyft, I was walking with urgency to be part of the solution(s).
Thanks for coming back, CGI. It’s been too long. I sure hope to see you again next year!
Not able to make it to CGI? Watch the recordings on-demand here!