Late last year, Hammer & Associates published the fourth of our EngagedPhilanthropy™ series called Global Philanthropy: A Family Office Guide to International Giving. In it, we highlighted some of the most impactful international initiatives we could find to share best international giving practices with the philanthropy and family office field.
One of those organizations is the Denver-based Global Livingston Institute (GLI). Since 2009, GLI has been connecting globally minded students, teachers, community leaders, healthcare workers, artists, and musicians from both the U.S. and Africa to solve complex social issues. GLI takes a Listen, Think, Act approach to every investment it makes: meaning, listen first to the community and its needs, think through ways of tackling issues, and only then, act alongside and with the community.
In 2014, the Global Livingston Institute (GLI) brought together a group of eclectic musicians from Colorado, New Orleans, and Nashville to Southern Uganda for the first iKnow concert, performing with talented musicians and rising stars in Africa. Now in its fifth year, the iKnow Concert Series, focused on culture sharing, public health, and economic development, is one of the most vibrant, celebratory, cross-cultural events in all of Africa.
While the music is main event, these concerts are about more than music: they create HIV awareness and prevention in communities that are sometimes hard to reach. In four years, 44,000 have attended the shows and more than 16,000 have received a free HIV test, along with other needed health services.
“Too often in Africa and other developing countries, someone comes in to help, builds something, and then goes away,” said Jamie Van Leeuwen, who founded GLI in 2009. “The most disappointing outcome on the planet is to have people work on something hard for two years, and then have it go away because the NGO leaves or donor funds shift.”
GLI has changed this trend by building intentional and lasting partnerships with local groups like Reach-a-Hand Uganda. These partnerships start—and grow—as conversations.
“In the years before the concerts, we convened local health providers from rural villages at our retreat center Entusi, inviting those who had never met each other,” said Van Leeuwen. “These providers said ‘as long as you are gathering thousands of people for a concert, would you mind if we do free HIV testing?’ We said sure, as long as you provide health services as well.”
That first year, healthcare providers tested 847 people for HIV. “We had so many people tested that we ran out of HIV tests,” said Van Leeuwen. “These health services now continue long after the concerts are over.” In the true spirit of community development, the concert series has fostered a way for community health providers to work more collaboratively than ever before, he said.
According to GLI’s executive director Ryan Grundy, health providers form their own pop-up health village for a week leading up to the concerts—offering free health screenings, family planning, and mental health counseling. Acrobats parade through the streets on stilts, spreading a positive health message, and tossing condoms to the crowd.
“If you told us four years ago that 44,000 people would show up at these music festivals, we would have said it’s not possible,” said Van Leeuwen. “Yet when you build true partnerships with the community, people join in. It’s about creating something together,” said Van Leeuwen. “We help drive it, and it’s the community who owns it.”
With a goal to create more jobs, GLI hires local Ugandans to run the stages, provide the food and services, work at local hotels, and more. All the money GLI generates from the concerts goes back into the local community. “In 2017 alone, we estimate that our concerts had an economic impact to the tune of more than $650,000 in Uganda,” said Van Leeuwen.
The days of donors writing a big check without engaging their skills or interests or passions are waning, he said. “We’ve moved beyond the idea of volunteering. We’re not there to fix anything. We want people to think big and think differently,” said Van Leeuwen. And have a good time doing it.
“Music and arts to promote a public good is a model that others can look to,” said Grundy. “It’s not about going to Africa for service work; it’s about going to Africa for festivals. We are changing the narrative for how people see Africa.”
Calling All Cultural Ambassadors
GLI is now lining up 50 or more cultural ambassadors to attend the 2018 concert series in Uganda and Rwanda this coming August. “We’ve seen more interest in donors and scholars and musicians from the U.S. who want to be involved. They want to see what an East African music festival looks and feels like, and experience Africa in a less traditional way.”
Cultural ambassadors meet with community leaders, members, and nonprofits to understand the nuances of the issues communities are facing. What’s more, they take part in the music festivals—seeing with their own eyes the cultural, health, and economic impacts of the concerts.
In 2018, the concerts will take place in Lira, Uganda (August 25), Masaka, Uganda (August 29), and Kabale, Uganda (September 1). For more information or to become a GLI cultural ambassador, email info@globallivingston.org.
Watch a video about the iKnow Concert Series here.