What is SpainNAB doing at a place like this? The question, paraphrasing the well-known Burning song, might seem fair to ask upon arriving at a gathering of community foundations. On paper, SpainNAB could have looked like an outsider: after all, our work revolves around impact finance and mobilizing capital to generate positive social and environmental outcomes. But it only took a few conversations to realize we were talking about exactly the same thing.
After taking part in the “2nd Territories with a Future Gathering”, a second stage of this visit to Almería began, this time centered on community foundations from across Spain, promoter groups, international organizations, donor foundations, and other entities committed to strengthening territories through local action.
Solutions that come from the territory
There are gatherings where experiences are exchanged. And there are others where something deeper comes through. On July 1st and 2nd, the conversation covered community philanthropy, citizen participation, associative strengthening, local leadership, collective response to challenges, and trust-building. But beyond the specific topics, what was truly present was a particular way of understanding territorial development.
Community foundations start from an idea that is simple and yet not simple at all: the most lasting solutions don’t come from outside, but are built by identifying and connecting the resources, talent, and capabilities that already exist within a community.
Hearing experiences as diverse as those of Almería Tierra Abierta, Tot Raval, Novessendes, la Plana, Renacere, and Filanda in Cambrils, along with a few international examples and the promoter groups driving new community foundations, made it possible to see just how far community stops being an abstract concept once it becomes a daily practice.
The ecosystemic outlook we need
One of the reasons this gathering was particularly inspiring for SpainNAB was seeing just how much community foundations operate from an ecosystemic logic. They listen to the territory before acting. They identify relationships and opportunities. They connect actors who don’t usually work together. They build trust. They create spaces for participation. They mobilize resources. They learn. They adapt. And they start again. In other words, they make it possible for territories to develop collective capacities to face complex challenges.
It’s an approach that naturally connects with the vision we champion in the field of impact investing and systemic transformation. Systemic change doesn’t happen because one organization has a great idea or because funding is available, it happens when multiple actors align around a shared purpose and find ways to collaborate to make it real.
The role of community foundations in impact finance
If there’s one thing we’re taking away from Almería, it’s the conviction that impact finance increasingly needs territorial roots. We need organizations capable of understanding each community’s real challenges, identifying opportunities, building trust, and connecting resources with concrete needs.
And that is precisely where community foundations make a distinctive contribution, acting as infrastructures of trust that know the assets and needs of their territory. They are able to identify initiatives with transformative potential and to build the alliances those initiatives need in order to thrive.
That’s why the growth of the community foundation movement in Spain matters so much — not only for what it brings to its territories, but also because it represents a fundamental piece in building more resilient, participatory ecosystems capable of channeling resources toward impact.
We want to give special thanks to AEF and Almería Tierra Abierta for their care over every detail of this gathering, and for the strategic vision to understand that SpainNAB was meant to be part of these conversations. Because, ultimately, these are shared conversations: how to put financial, relational, institutional, and community resources at the service of the people and organizations building possible futures from their own territories.
And few things fit the spirit of impact finance better than that.
