Volunteering and pro bono engagement are too often seen as soft contributions, yet they represent one of the world’s largest untapped economic engines. This session will highlight how structured volunteerism, skills-based pro bono programs, and community engagement initiatives generate measurable GDP contributions, strengthen social cohesion, and fuel innovation across industries. From corporate pro bono models that bring world-class expertise to grassroots organizations, to national service programs that boost employment and civic trust, we will explore how countries and companies can reframe volunteerism as strategic infrastructure for both economic and social progress.
Research and development are driving unprecedented advances in health care. New breakthroughs, from biotechnology and AI-enabled diagnostics to public- and privately-funded research institutions and locally developed treatments tailored to regional needs, are leaving the laboratory and reaching the front lines of care. This session explores how investment in R&D can strengthen health systems, expand access, and stimulate economic growth. Speakers will examine how governments, academia, and nonprofits can collaborate to accelerate innovation responsibly, ensuring that scientific progress translates into equitable, life-saving outcomes for all.
As digital giving skyrockets, particularly in Asia, MENA, and beyond, new risks threaten to undermine its growth, such as fraud, data privacy breaches, donor skepticism, and accountability. This session will spotlight case studies of NGOs and fintech platforms that built donor trust through transparent reporting, blockchain pilots, and regulatory compliance. Without digital trust, the growth of online philanthropy collapses. Attendees will learn practical tools for securing data, communicating impact, and ensuring donor confidence, while also exploring government’s role in setting standards for data privacy, certifying giving platforms, and prosecuting fraud.
Youth Impact Council (YIC) leaders share how youth-led non-profits are using AI and new technologies to reimagine community programs to reach people faster, tailor support, and turn limited resources into deeper, measurable impact.
Front-line health workers, humanitarians, and educators face mounting pressures, from burnout to resource constraints, that make it increasingly difficult for non-profits to find, hire, retain, and train the next generation of leaders. This interactive session will focus on workforce and leadership development, equipping participants with practical tools such as peer learning models, inclusive leadership practices, and frameworks for building strong talent pipelines. Through panel insights and audience engagement, attendees will explore strategies to strengthen organizational culture, nurture emerging leaders, and sustain mission-driven impact in challenging environments.
A national non-profit registry is more than a database – it is essential infrastructure for a thriving social sector. This session will dive into the opportunities and challenges of introducing new registration systems, driving organizational uptake, and highlight best practices for government engagement and incentives that build buy-in. This interactive demo-panel will showcase how modern registries can unlock value when they are open, user-friendly, and widely used. The session will highlight: (1) how real-time information that can be made freely available on non-profits; (2) how open APIs and data tools enable researchers, platforms, donors, regulators, and media to integrate registry data into their own systems, and (3) how transparency and accessibility can build trust, reduce fraud risk, and support better decision-making, among other practical lessons.
Join H.E. Eng. Ahmed bin Sulaiman Al Rajhi, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD) to learn more about the Kingdom’s commitment, particularly through the National Center for Non-Profit Sector (NCNP), to building a high-trust, high-performance social sector. The keynote will spotlight recent milestones and catalysts, including surpassing one million volunteers, streamlined licensing to accelerate sector growth, the launch of the Uswah social investment fund, and more. Setting the tone for the next two days, the address outlines priorities for partnership, shared metrics, and scalable delivery aligned with Vision 2030.
As traditional global assistance budgets contract and legacy models shift, the non-profit sector stands at a pivotal moment of reinvention. While some nations scale back, others, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are strengthening their commitment through new forms of collaboration, financing, and institutional support. This session explores the implications of these geopolitical and structural changes and the choices the sector faces, including whether to adapt to the global realignments, reinvent financing models, and harness blended capital through emerging models such as impact-linked finance, corporate–NPO co-creation, and social enterprises that enable more flexible and innovative funding. The discussion will also consider how mega-donors and private capital can complement, rather than replace, state priorities and strengthen accountability, ensuring that emerging models reduce fragmentation while driving measurable, system-level change.
As traditional global assistance budgets contract and legacy models shift, the non-profit sector stands at a pivotal moment of reinvention. While some nations scale back, others, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are strengthening their commitment through new forms of collaboration, financing, and institutional support. This session explores the implications of these geopolitical and structural changes and the choices the sector faces, including whether to adapt to the global realignments, reinvent financing models, and harness blended capital through emerging models such as impact-linked finance, corporate–NPO co-creation, and social enterprises that enable more flexible and innovative funding. The discussion will also consider how mega-donors and private capital can complement, rather than replace, state priorities and strengthen accountability, ensuring that emerging models reduce fragmentation while driving measurable, system-level change.
This session explores how non-profits and social enterprises can pair mission with margin, building sustainable models that align purpose with performance. Speakers will unpack how emerging revenue strategies and impact-linked financing are helping organizations achieve financial resilience while advancing their missions and redefining how they engage with investors and grant makers. The discussion will highlight policy frameworks that enable these models to scale, from government procurement programs and tax incentives to social enterprise laws that attract private investment. Through global and Saudi examples, the session examines how public policy, private capital, and non-profit innovation can converge to drive inclusive, system-level change.
Trust is the lifeblood of the social sector and data is its infrastructure. This session explores how national non-profit regulators can manage public concerns and complaints, alongside other intelligence, through a risk-based lens to deliver efficient decisions and build public trust in the sector. We will explore how data can help underpin timely decision making and how public communications tools can drive positive engagement with regulatory advice. We will also explore the link between public awareness of regulatory interventions and trust in the sector, enabling not-for-profits to thrive.
Should philanthropy focus on maximizing measurable efficiency (every dollar tracked to impact) or on empowering non-profits with the autonomy to decide how best to achieve impact? Which approach ultimately delivers greater and longer-lasting results? This session explores the pendulum swing between Effective Altruism’s metrics-driven rigor and the surge of trust-based, unrestricted “no-strings” giving championed by newer mega-donors. The discussion will unpack trade-offs between accountability and equity, frameworks for blending outcomes and values, and how to design sustainable giving models that provide long-term, flexible support for organizations and the communities they serve, as well as government’s role in creating tax incentives and legal frameworks that support flexible funding.
This practical workshop turns “financial sustainability” from a slogan into a playbook. Over 2 hours, non-profit leaders will learn how to balance today’s program needs with tomorrow’s resilience. Sponsored by Sulaiman Al Rajhi Foundation for Development Finance and using case studies you’ll map the stages of sustainability, explore internal and external pathways, and learn about success stores and the importance of social investment and government support in the non-profit sector.
Non-profits are moving from stopgap services to systemic solutions, while keeping near-term relief in view. From climate resilience and food security to education-to-employment, organizations are addressing root causes without losing frontline impact. This session focuses on operator practice: service design, outcome measurement, and replication playbooks that turn systems thinking into reliable results. We’ll also examine how government can enable scale through policy frameworks, regulatory incentives, and platforms that support NGO-led innovation.
As AI reshapes how organizations operate, deliver on their missions, and measure impact, the social sector faces a defining opportunity: how to harness innovation to achieve more, responsibly and at scale. This session explores how non-profits, philanthropists, and policymakers are integrating AI to accelerate mission delivery, improve efficiency, and deepen transparency, while safeguarding ethics, equity, and trust. Speakers will share lessons from real-world applications to uncover both the promise and the perils of AI in mission delivery: how it can unlock transparency, scale, and inclusion, while also deepening divides if left unchecked. The discussion will highlight what responsible adoption looks like in practice, examining governance frameworks, leadership mindsets, and the trade-offs between speed, scale, and stewardship. Participants will leave with a clearer view of how to advance mission innovation in the age of AI – when it amplifies impact, and when restraint matters most.
Building on lessons from innovation labs, pooled donor funds, and hybrid models, this session spotlights what it takes to design social-sector approaches that are scalable, cost-aware, and inclusive across regions. We’ll center the role of government, from incubating non-profits via national innovation funds to enabling supportive legal frameworks and results-based procurement, and the deployment of catalytic finance that crowds in private capital. Speakers will explore how multi-sector collaboration, digital delivery infrastructure (ID, payments, data-sharing), and common measurement frameworks accelerate experimentation, reduce duplication, and verify outcomes, creating investable pipelines that move bold ideas from pilot to policy to national (and cross-border) scale—with visibility into earnings uplift, job creation, and fiscal returns aligned to national strategies
No single actor can tackle the world’s most complex challenges alone. From food security to health equity, climate action to education, meaningful progress demands collaboration across sectors. This session will explore how governments, corporates, and nonprofits can co-design solutions that align incentives, share risks, and scale results. Speakers will examine models where partnership moves beyond coordination to genuine co-creation, building a bigger tent for impact that’s inclusive, adaptive, and sustainable.
No single actor can tackle the world’s most complex challenges alone. From food security to health equity, climate action to education, meaningful progress demands collaboration across sectors. This session will explore how governments, corporates, and nonprofits can co-design solutions that align incentives, share risks, and scale results. Speakers will examine models where partnership moves beyond coordination to genuine co-creation, building a bigger tent for impact that’s inclusive, adaptive, and sustainable.
In 2024, the Misk Foundation and the Gates Foundation launched the Challenge for Change, a youth program which aims to develop future leaders of non-profit and social impact initiatives in Saudi Arabia. The program was launched at the Misk Global Forum and is part of an expanded partnership between the Gates Foundation and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
During this session three Challenge for Change program winners share about their ambitious aspirations to tackle pressing global challenges in quality of life, technology, and environmental sustainability.
In this fireside chat, former UNESCO Director General H.E. Audrey Azoulay reflects on her two terms spent defending education, culture, and information as global public goods, and how these experiences shape her thinking about the future. As conflicts, climate shocks, and AI-driven platforms threaten to erase or distort collective memory, non-profits and cultural leaders are emerging as critical “guardians of peace and memory”: safeguarding heritage at risk, strengthening education systems, promoting media and information literacy, and using data to protect rights and inclusion. The conversation will explore how technology can both endanger and strengthen this work, and how partnerships between governments, philanthropy, and civil society can build trusted infrastructures for knowledge, from digital heritage platforms to AI-ready education systems. Drawing on examples from Saudi Arabia and beyond, the session will ask what legacy we want to leave, and how non-profits can help ensure future generations inherit truth, diversity, and a shared sense of humanity.
The session focuses on how leading arts and heritage institutions secure their future and grow creative jobs. The panel explores how institutions build long-term capital bases such as endowments or waqf, inviting private partners through clear policy signals and co-investment, and designing diversified income models across streaming, touring, licensing, retail, co-productions, and links to tourism and place making. Speakers will discuss strategies and partnerships that turn cultural excellence into stable revenues and a vibrant ecosystem of creative businesses.
How do we move money from intent to deployment – fast, at scale, and with integrity? This session brings together leaders spanning the capital stack to show what it takes to blend grants, catalytic and concessional finance, and commercial capital into investable vehicles that deliver measurable outcomes. From pipelines of social enterprises and patient capital to cross-border investor networks and project-finance, speakers will unpack structures that de-risk early stages, crowd in institutional money, and align incentives for real impact.
How do we move money from intent to deployment – fast, at scale, and with integrity? This session brings together leaders spanning the capital stack to show what it takes to blend grants, catalytic and concessional finance, and commercial capital into investable vehicles that deliver measurable outcomes. From pipelines of social enterprises and patient capital to cross-border investor networks and project-finance, speakers will unpack structures that de-risk early stages, crowd in institutional money, and align incentives for real impact.
The non-profit sector is a critical yet undervalued engine of economic diversification, job creation, and innovation, directly supporting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goals for a vibrant society and thriving economy. This session will move beyond traditional metrics to examine the sector’s future role in building a resilient, knowledge-based economy aligned with giga-projects and quality-of-life initiatives. Together, we will explore how strategic investment in non-profits, particularly social enterprises, research universities, and cultural institutions, can drive new markets, attract foreign direct investment, and significantly contribute to GDP diversification beyond oil.
This workshop treats organizational culture as a strategic capacity that renews, not just sustains, an institution’s giving. Drawing on insights from Tarouf Orphans Association, the session explores how shared values, purposeful work climates, and coherent practices build the collective ability to give with consistency and long-term endurance. We’ll frame culture as an institutional force, aligning meaning, motivation, and direction, so generosity can evolve, adapt, and regenerate over time. Participants leave with practical approaches to cultivate a culture that preserves vitality, strengthens continuity, and expands the organization’s long-term capacity to give.
Vulnerable youth, especially those in orphanages, care centers, or fragile home situations, need more than a bed; they need stable families, skills, and a dignified route to independence. This session reframes support through a family-first, youth-development lens aligned with Vision 2030. We’ll explore how family mediation, kinship and foster care, and reunification services can reduce reliance on institutional care; how trauma-informed mentoring, life-skills, and apprenticeship tracks build confidence and employability; and how policy, courts, and social services can coordinate to keep children safely within caring families whenever possible. Drawing on global exemplars and Saudi successes, discussion will highlight Mawaddah-style approaches preventive counseling, conflict resolution, and post-care follow-upthat strengthen family stability, protect children, and create measurable transitions to education, work, and community belonging. Attendees will leave with practical models for partnerships, safeguarding, and outcomes tracking that turn short-term shelter into long-term strength.
Regulatory shifts can either enable or restrict civil society. Around the world, governments are reshaping the non-profit landscape through new laws and regulations. Some are opening space for innovation and growth, while others are raising concerns about overreach and restrictions on civic life. This workshop will explore the role of government as both regulator and enabler, examining frameworks that balance oversight with empowerment, such as tax, procurement and governance.
Citizen-led movements are rewriting the rulebook on how impact gets funded, delivered, and measured. In this session, leaders behind grassroots organizations from around the world share the plays that took them from a single spark to durable programs, funding pipelines, and policy wins. From WASH projects that outlast grant cycles to youth networks shaping national agendas, and community-owned conservation tech that creates livelihoods while protecting nature, each leader shares what actually scales: the partnerships, financing blends, metrics that matter, and the guardrails that keep communities in control.
This conversation centers on personal leadership and citizen agency. H.E. Macky Sall – 4th President of Senegal (2012–2024), former Chair of the African Union, and now Chair of the Global Center on Adaptation – draws on lessons from national leadership, themes from his L’Afrique au Cœur (Africa: Leading from the Heart), and the early work of the Macky Sall Foundation for Peace, Dialogue and Development to show how dignity, inclusion, and opportunity move people from recipients to builders. Anchored in climate adaptation, food security, rural development, education, and youth skills, he shares replicable models that help non-profits and social enterprises scale impact and how ministries, philanthropies, and NGO leaders can engage and inspire individuals to lead, build, adapt, serve, and lift others.
As climate volatility intensifies, new technologies and financing models are reshaping how food systems and rural economies adapt. From AI–powered weather forecasting and digital crop insurance to impact-linked finance and blended capital, innovation is connecting in unprecedented ways. We’ll look at the mix of ingredients that turns innovation into impact at scale: credible demand, dependable delivery networks, and transparent results that attract sustained support.
In this keynote conversation, H.H. Princess Haifa bint Abdulaziz Al-Mogrin will explore how national investment in culture, heritage, creativity, and social development is not only a matter of identity and dignity, but also an economic strategy that generates jobs, advances sustainable development, and strengthens social cohesion. Drawing on her work representing Saudi Arabia abroad, including at UNESCO and now as Ambassador to Spain and Andorra, she will discuss how investment in non-profits, cultural institutions, creative industries, and community-led initiatives can expand opportunity (particularly for youth and women), project soft power, drive tourism, attract global partnership, and create long-term economic value. She will also speak to why acknowledging that value at the policy level matters.
Sport isn’t just play – it’s health, skills, social connection, and social mobility. This session shows how national programs and club foundations turn school and community sport into measurable outcomes, including attendance, wellbeing, inclusion, and clear pathways to jobs: coach and referee certification, facility ops, events, digital content, and sports-health services. We’ll unpack the partnerships and financing that make it stick (schools, federations, clubs, employers), plus simple data dashboards that track participation to credentials, apprenticeships, and employment.
The session examines proven, data-driven ways to unlock rural economic value: last-mile logistics that connect producers to markets, housing and infrastructure, women-led micro-enterprise, and digital rails for payments and distribution. Speakers will share climate-smart financing and partnership models that move from pilots to scale and show how philanthropy, corporates, and government can crowd in capital, professionalize value chains, and measure macro-level contributions to national development strategies.
Non-profits aren’t just stories of change—they’re economic engines. Beyond mission delivery, they drive jobs, productivity, volunteering, and GDP (Saudi Arabia’s sector is ~1%). This session moves from anecdotes to evidence: how social enterprises, structured volunteering, skills-based pro bono, and community engagement translate into earnings uplift, job creation, fiscal returns, social cohesion, and cross-industry innovation. We’ll unpack practical frameworks that map program outcomes to employment, innovation spillovers, and city- and nation-level growth, and show how policy, data-sharing, and digital infrastructure scale proven models from pilots to systems. We’ll also examine the macro value of enduring public-purpose institutions, including research centers, museums, civic dialogue platforms, universities, as “soft-power infrastructure” that compounds talent, innovation, and place-based growth. Government’s role in policy, funding, and partnerships will be front and center.
Non-profits aren’t just stories of change—they’re economic engines. Beyond mission delivery, they drive jobs, productivity, volunteering, and GDP (Saudi Arabia’s sector is ~1%). This session moves from anecdotes to evidence: how social enterprises, structured volunteering, skills-based pro bono, and community engagement translate into earnings uplift, job creation, fiscal returns, social cohesion, and cross-industry innovation. We’ll unpack practical frameworks that map program outcomes to employment, innovation spillovers, and city- and nation-level growth, and show how policy, data-sharing, and digital infrastructure scale proven models from pilots to systems. We’ll also examine the macro value of enduring public-purpose institutions, including research centers, museums, civic dialogue platforms, universities, as “soft-power infrastructure” that compounds talent, innovation, and place-based growth. Government’s role in policy, funding, and partnerships will be front and center.
At a time when international assistance is shrinking and many women-led organizations are at risk of closing, the sector must confront a basic question: who is philanthropy really designed around, and who should be leading it? In this fireside chat, author, activist, investor, and social entrepreneur Zainab Salbi will explore how giving can be re-centered on those closest to the issues. Drawing on her experience founding Women for Women International, which grew from helping 30 women to over 460,000 and distributed more than $146 million in aid and services, ultimately raising $240 million largely through small monthly donations she brings a frontline view of how philanthropy can be designed differently. She will also reflect on co-founding Daughters for Earth, a collaborative fund mobilizing $100 million that lets frontline women leaders in biodiversity hotspots decide how funds are allocated, to show what it looks like to democratize philanthropy and shift decision-making power to the ground.
The global assistance and social impact system is being reorganized in real time. As the 2030 SDG deadline approaches and major goals slip off track, traditional development assistance is losing influence, and a new power and partnership map is emerging. Philanthropy from the Gulf and the Global South is rising, sovereign funds and development banks are using blended finance to crowd in private capital, and AI, biotech, and data infrastructure are reshaping how poverty, health, climate, and education are addressed. For non-profits, this is an inflection point: the old funding models are being challenged by locally led groups seeking direct capital, by mission-driven businesses competing for impact funding, and by governments positioning social investment as part of national strategy. This session explores who will set priorities, who will be trusted to deliver, and what becomes the new currency of legitimacy: metrics, local ownership, or geopolitical alignment? We will explore scenarios for “Beyond 2030” and leave with a roadmap of plausible futures. Governments’ roles in aligning national strategies, embedding philanthropy into Vision 2030 and other programs will be explored.
The global assistance and social impact system is being reorganized in real time. As the 2030 SDG deadline approaches and major goals slip off track, traditional development assistance is losing influence, and a new power and partnership map is emerging. Philanthropy from the Gulf and the Global South is rising, sovereign funds and development banks are using blended finance to crowd in private capital, and AI, biotech, and data infrastructure are reshaping how poverty, health, climate, and education are addressed. For non-profits, this is an inflection point: the old funding models are being challenged by locally led groups seeking direct capital, by mission-driven businesses competing for impact funding, and by governments positioning social investment as part of national strategy. This session explores who will set priorities, who will be trusted to deliver, and what becomes the new currency of legitimacy: metrics, local ownership, or geopolitical alignment? We will explore scenarios for “Beyond 2030” and leave with a roadmap of plausible futures. Governments’ roles in aligning national strategies, embedding philanthropy into Vision 2030 and other programs will be explored.
As Beyond[Profit] Day 2 comes to a close, this keynote from Ahmed bin Ali Al-Suwailem, the CEO of the National Center for Non-Profit Sector, reflects on key takeaways from the forum and how these insights will shape the future of NCNP’s work, the Saudi non-profit ecosystem, and the wider global sector.