2026 Agenda

Want to beat the morning rush and grab your badge or printed program early? Do you need help activating Whova, this year’s networking app? Are you interested in joining a site visit or one of this year’s early morning sessions?

Stop by our registration desk the day before CADF 2026 kicks off and chat with our friendly staff for answers to all of your questions.

Connecting with others is at the core of the CADF 2026 experience. Before the main sessions begin, we invite you to dive into a dynamic half-day of networking designed to expand your network and drive new collaboration.

Join our strategic roundtables and small group sessions to tackle the most pressing challenges in Central America today. Whether you are passionate about workforce development, expanding access to education, defending civic space, protecting the environment, or any other topic, you will find your community here.

Scroll down to see our scheduled networking spaces and take advantage of this opportunity to strategize, share perspectives, and build powerful alliances with changemakers who share your vision.

Note: Seattle International Foundation will continuously update and add networking sessions for Tuesday, September 29 leading up to CADF 2026. Check the listed sessions below this section again soon for newly added networking opportunities.

Join this casual networking space, facilitated by Global Philanthropy Project, to connect with other attendees interested in trans and intersex movements.

Note: Space may be limited and is available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Join this casual networking space, facilitated by Northeastern School of Law, to connect with other attendees interested in human rights advocacy.

Note: Space may be limited and is available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Join this conversation connecting funders with CADF participants to explore the realities of expanding access to quality education. Together, they will unpack regional insights, emerging trends, and the core questions shaping the field. Make the most of this opportunity to hear directly how these institutions are approaching this critical work.

Join this conversation connecting funders with CADF participants to explore the realities of expanding workforce development and access to decent jobs. Together, they will unpack regional insights, emerging trends, and the core questions shaping the field. Make the most of this opportunity to hear directly how these institutions are approaching this critical work.

ANDE and the International Community Foundation (ICF) invite regional and global funders to a strategic dialogue on advancing inclusive, resilient economic opportunity in Central America. Building on ANDE’s 15+ years of ecosystem-building through the Guatemala Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (GEDI), and ICF’s commitment to strengthening the business acumen and connection to markets for smallholder farmers and producer organizations, the session will explore opportunities to strengthen entrepreneurship ecosystems, expand access to finance and markets, and address economic drivers of migration.

This dialogue aims to strengthen regional donor coordination, align resources, and support a more resilient and inclusive regional economy in Central America.

Note: This session is by invitation only. To request an invitation, please use this form.

Join this conversation connecting funders with CADF participants to explore the realities of protecting democracy and civic space. Together, they will unpack regional insights, emerging trends, and the core questions shaping the field. Make the most of this opportunity to hear directly how these institutions are approaching this critical work.

Join this conversation connecting funders with CADF participants to explore the realities of protecting women’s rights. Together, they will unpack regional insights, emerging trends, and the core questions shaping the field. Make the most of this opportunity to hear directly how these institutions are approaching this critical work.

This strategic roundtable is a conversation to revisit the main findings of “Stoking the Common Fire” and contrast them with what has happened in Central America since its presentation in April 2026. This space aims to identify which trends have deepened, what new challenges have emerged, and what implications these changes hold for cooperation heading into 2027, opening a frank discussion on priorities, capacities, and forms of support in the face of an increasingly complex regional scenario.

Join this learning space, facilitated by Casa Centroamérica, to connect with other attendees interested in development challenges leading into the next year.

Note: Space may be limited and is available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Join this casual networking space, facilitated by Conectivas, to connect with other attendees interested in women and disabilities.

Note: Space may be limited and available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Join this conversation connecting funders with CADF participants to explore the realities of protecting the environment, mitigating climate change, and stewarding territories. Together, they will unpack regional insights, emerging trends, and the core questions shaping the field. Make the most of this opportunity to hear directly how these institutions are approaching this critical work.

Join this conversation connecting funders with CADF participants to explore the realities of supporting journalism and independent media. Together, they will unpack regional insights, emerging trends, and the core questions shaping the field. Make the most of this opportunity to hear directly how these institutions are approaching this critical work. 

Join Seattle International Foundation at the InterContinental Hotel for drinks to unwind after a day of travel and networking. A perfect way to meet and catch up with other participants before our first full day of sessions at CADF 2026.

Pick up your CADF badge first from the registration table to grab a free drink!

On the second day of CADF 2026, come chat with our friendly staff for answers to all of your questions.

LGBTIQ+ children and adolescents need protection networks that recognize their realities and respond to their needs. But what happens when child rights and LGBTIQ+ movements work separately?

This session is an invitation to build bridges: to share experiences, recognize challenges, and explore how we can bring together capacities, knowledge, and struggles to strengthen the protection of LGBTIQ+ children and adolescents. Drawing on experiences from El Salvador and Guatemala, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges of building alliances between both movements, particularly in contexts of democratic backsliding and shrinking civic space.

This session builds on findings from a situational study on the potential and challenges of civil society organizations supporting LGBTIQ+ children and young people in El Salvador, conducted by Terre des Hommes and Asociación de Mujeres Ixchel. The study identifies an urgent need to strengthen these connections.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) play a strategic role in the digital inclusion of vulnerable communities. Their understanding of real needs and ability to build local partnerships make them key actors in accelerating technology adoption, digital empowerment, and social resilience. However, many organizations still face technological gaps that limit their management, innovation, and access to funding.

This panel explores how collaborative networks and sustainable digital transformation processes can strengthen CSOs’ efficiency, sustainability, and impact, while advancing digital inclusion for women, children and youth, rural populations, Indigenous communities, and small businesses.

Drawing on the experience of Fundación Cibervoluntarios and Cibervoluntarios Network, the panel will discuss how to foster inclusive digital ecosystems in Central America through partnerships among civil society, governments, donors, and multilateral organizations.

This interactive workshop will focus on participatory approaches to gathering information from affected communities on how triggering factors and the lack of protection intersect and amplify the loss and damage caused by climate change. These factors are critical for quantifying loss and damage to develop effective programs.

This workshop is suited for practitioners looking to better understand and apply these concepts, and for donors who fund climate change programming.

Participants will gain tools and resources that will allow them to develop stronger proposals based on community participation and feedback. This workshop is based on the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Toolkit for Comprehensive Climate Impact Quantification (C-CIQ).

This participatory panel proposes rethinking democracy beyond the ballot box and institutions, recognizing the ways it is built from the territories.

With a historical perspective and an eye toward the Central American context, three voices with experience in Guatemala will discuss the shrinking of civic space, the advance of authoritarianism, and the responses emerging from communities.

Beyond formal institutions, other forms of organization, participation, advocacy, and alliance-building will be showcased through the experiences of Indigenous peoples, women, youth, and social movements. Rather than focusing on the crisis, the panel will share stories of resilience and hope that allow us to recognize how democracy is exercised, transformed, and sustained daily from the territories, generating lessons and new narratives for Central America.

Join Adriana Beltrán, Executive Director of Seattle International Foundation, as she welcomes our audience to the 16th annual Central America Donors Forum. Adriana will open CADF 2026 and invite you to take your seat at the table during these discussions of adaptation in action in Central America.

Central America’s closing civic space and shrinking international funding are not a passing crisis. They are a structural shift. Reinvention is already happening, but under pressure, and making it last is the real challenge. This panel brings together research, funding, and practice to ask what it would take for that reinvention to become strategic instead of reactive. Speakers will also discuss the role donors can play in backing those capacities and building relationships grounded in trust.

Network and exchange session takeaways with fellow CADF attendees while enjoying refreshments.

This workshop will present essential concepts and practices for addressing the digital security challenges faced by activists, journalists, and human rights defenders in Central America.

Central America is facing growing uncertainty driven by declining international funding, violence, migration, and increasing pressure on public systems. In this context, strengthening the technical skills of teachers and young people alone is no longer enough. Social and emotional well-being is foundational infrastructure for sustaining learning, strengthening employability, and increasing resilience.

In Guatemala, a partnership between civil society and the country’s teacher training institution has integrated non-clinical mental health tools into teacher education. At the same time, organizations in the region are demonstrating that social and emotional skills are critical to youth employability.

This session will share lessons learned to ensure that social and emotional well-being is consolidated on the agenda of donors and decision-makers as a strategic component of investments in education and employability, strengthening human capital and the sustainability of systems.

What stories about Central America are missing? The dominant narrative of the region tends to reproduce precariousness, invisibilize solutions, and demobilize audiences. In response to this, constructive journalism and new narratives offer a strategic alternative: telling stories from a place of agency, innovation, and hope without losing rigor or context.

In this session, Quorum, Oxfam Guatemala, and Hivos share concrete experiences, replicable models, and lessons learned from an alliance that is reimagining the way Central America is narrated. The session combines real-world cases, open debate, and practical tools for journalists, civil society organizations, and donors who want the stories they tell to have a greater impact.

This session will use a fishbowl format. Rather than a traditional panel, it is an open conversation where the audience is invited to participate.

The first 20 minutes will be a warm-up. Four voices will share complementary perspectives: Emilio (Tinker) as a regional funder in Latin America, Julianne (Luis von Ahn Foundation) as a portfolio manager in Guatemala, Magdalena (Global School Leaders, GSL) as a global voice on school leadership, and Marilena (Child Aid) as a local implementer. The group will discuss the importance of school leadership, the cost-effectiveness evidence behind GSL’s model, practical experiences in Guatemala, regional coordination, and the relevance of collective work. 

This warm-up seeks to generate guiding questions. In the remaining 40 minutes, the circle will open up, and anyone can take a seat on the stage, share their perspective, and yield their seat to another voice. The goal: a collective conversation, not a series of presentations.

Can agricultural waste become a source of income, regeneration, and climate resilience? In this hands-on workshop, Corus International will share experiences from Central America demonstrating how circular economy practices can reduce losses, optimize resources, and create economic, social, and environmental value. Through a creative activity, a brief panel, and a collaborative challenge, participants will apply a Circular Resilience Canvas to a real case.

Attendees will leave with ideas for solutions, a key partnership identified, and one concrete action to test within the next 30 days. Using Slido (an interactive platform to promote group participation), the audience will also share knowledge, submit questions, and prioritize solutions with the greatest potential.

Pull up a seat at any lunch table and network with new connections. Find a table card featuring a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) that interests you to meet potential allies for your work.

Note: Space may be limited in the main lunch room. To accommodate all attendees, attendees will have access to lunch between 11:00am – 3:00pm. Lunch is available in the Cipres and Rosul rooms.

Authoritarian narratives in Central America don’t rely on persuasion alone. They demand that people toe the official line, and that grip is hard for conventional counter-narratives to break. Humor, satire, and irony work differently. They expose the gap between what those in power say and what’s actually happening, corner leaders with no good response, and spread through informal networks fast and slippery enough to protect the people who make them, cracking the authoritarian narrative underneath. 

This workshop brings together journalists, artists, activists, and researchers who use these tools across the region. They’ll share their own work and strategies, covering forms like satire, irony, institutional parody, absurdism, and carnivalesque inversion, and break down how each one works, when to use it, and what risks it carries. Together, participants will practice the skills needed to push back on authoritarian narratives. 

Note: This session is by invitation only. To request an invitation, please reach out to Carlos Martínez Ruiz at [email protected].

What happens when rural women have access to the resources, knowledge, and opportunities to turn their ideas into decisions and their decisions into changes?

This panel centers the voices of women from Guatemala who are strengthening their livelihoods, generating income, and leading transformations within their families and communities. Drawing from their experience, they will share what opportunities made those changes possible, what barriers persist, and what kinds of support and partnerships they need to move forward. For development partners, this will be an opportunity to listen directly to those experiencing these processes and reflect on how to invest in a way that strengthens leadership, economic autonomy, and the solutions the women themselves are building in their own communities.

The session will showcase the experiences of European Union partners in Guatemala in implementing programs that strengthen the job skills of vulnerable groups in order to support their labor market integration, with an emphasis on decent work in priority sectors of the country’s Global Gateway Investment Agenda.

Additionally, speakers will share experiences supporting the development of the productive sector to foster the creation of quality jobs and income.

In Central America, human rights defenders face restrictions that hinder their work. This session will bring together civil society representatives and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to discuss three key areas: psychosocial well-being as the foundation for organizational sustainability, effective strategies for protecting civic space in the region through the exchange of experiences, and the relationship between international human rights mechanisms and civil society.

Using the fishbowl methodology, the audience will be able to actively participate in the conversation by sharing experiences and reflections. The goal is to collectively develop proposals and courses of action that strengthen protection, collaboration, and sustainability within human rights advocacy work.

Millions of dollars are invested in education and employment in Central America, but the reasoning behind those decisions is rarely discussed openly.

This panel will open that conversation at a time when international cooperation is retreating, the labor market is transforming, new demands for talent are emerging, and societies are aging.

Through a dialogue among different donors, the session will explore how strategies are adapted to create opportunities in the region. It will discuss results-based models, community investment, entrepreneurship and value-chain strengthening, and emerging agendas. It will also address the tensions that arise in each scenario: how to measure impact without excluding, how to take risks, and how to build partnerships that last.

Across Central America, locally led agroecological initiatives are restoring soils and food systems while creating opportunities for young people, strengthening livelihoods, improving health, advancing gender equity, and helping communities adapt to a changing climate.

Through the voices of practitioners and young leaders from across the region, this interactive fishbowl conversation will explore agroecology as a powerful intersection between issues that philanthropy often addresses in silos. Participants will hear practical examples from the field, exchange perspectives with speakers and peers, and reflect on where agroecology connects with their own funding priorities. Agroecology can be a powerful lever for multiple philanthropic goals—and participants will leave with concrete ideas for how funders can support locally led solutions and help them scale to create more resilient communities across Central America.

The civil society ecosystem in Central America is facing a structural shift, and episodic crisis funding is no longer enough.

The panel will address the urgency of transitioning from emergency management to long-term power building, and of preventing civic infrastructure from weakening when philanthropic attention wanes.

This session will analyze how organizations generate autonomy through social enterprises and self-generated income, and it will explore mission-aligned revenue models, from a coffee partnership to paid entertainment like stand-up comedy. It will also discuss how to place sustainability at the center of funding decisions, and whether philanthropy should fund consistently to sustain community power or only continue responding to short-term crises. An honest conversation to transform vulnerability into systemic resilience.

This panel will present an integrated and multidimensional analysis of the main political, legal, technical, security, and procedural risks that Guatemala’s 2027 general elections will face. Speakers will demonstrate the value of systematic and evidence-based election observation as a mechanism for democratic resilience and will spark a regional conversation on the role of civic election observation coalitions as strategic actors in defending democratic space. This session will seek to connect international actors, donors, and observers with the Guatemalan organizations safeguarding electoral integrity to generate potential alliances and support.

Organizations in Central America face growing pressure to demonstrate impact with fewer resources, while AI is increasingly presented as a solution.

This interactive workshop proposes flipping the usual logic and starting with the people the programs serve. Through practical exercises and regional cases, participants will explore how to design and evaluate AI and impact tools based on community outcomes, language, context, connectivity, dignity, and data rights. Together, they will identify where AI can genuinely accelerate social change and where it can generate costs, risks, or extraction. Each participant will leave with a reusable beneficiary-centered framework and a practical checklist to evaluate AI tools before adopting them.

Network and exchange session takeaways with fellow CADF attendees while enjoying refreshments.

In Central America, inequalities in opportunities, resources, and care, along with racism, patriarchal violence, and the climate crisis, do not operate separately: they intertwine and reinforce one another. In the face of this convergence of inequalities, women have woven concrete and transformative responses. They organize collective care, defend their territories and natural resources, build support networks for migrants, and drive cooperatives and solidarity economies.

This session presents organizational experiences from Central America that show that economic justice cannot be reduced to including women within an unequal system: it demands redistributing power, time, work, and resources from a feminist, territorial, and community-based perspective.

The award-winning documentary Comparsa follows two teenage sisters who galvanize a youth movement in their neighborhood on the outskirts of Guatemala City, using art to transform their experience of gender-based violence and loss into compelling collective action.

The documentary is the product of over 17 years of collaboration between the filmmaking team and young artists from Ciudad Peronia, and has won 25 awards at international festivals, including the Audience Award at the Costa Rica and Lima film festivals. Beyond the screen, the film has reached thousands of young people, students, teachers, and Central American community members, from workshops in rural villages to urban neighborhoods on the periphery.

After the screening, protagonists Lesli and Lupe Canela and Marta Chicoj, from Peronia Adolescente, will converse with moderator Ana Joaquina Ruiz Guerra, from the Ford Foundation, about art as a vehicle for profound civic action.

Note: The documentary will be screened in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch the trailer here.

On the last day of CADF 2026, come chat with our friendly staff for answers to all of your questions.

Climate mobility requires moving from regional commitments to concrete, sustainable, rights-based territorial responses.

This session will bring together governments, civil society, cooperation actors, and community stakeholders to analyze how to implement a shared agenda on human mobility and displacement associated with climate change in Central America.

Drawing on recent lessons learned, regional commitments, and international frameworks such as the Global Compact for Migration, the discussion will address the main challenges of translating standards and agreements into public policies, financing mechanisms, technical cooperation, and local action. The dialogue will help identify gaps, priorities, and opportunities for coordination to strengthen more effective, participatory responses adapted to territorial realities.

Human rights defenders, journalists, justice operators, and social leaders from Central America have been forced to leave their countries due to persecution, criminalization, and the shrinking of civic space. However, exile does not have to mean the loss of their skills, knowledge, and leadership.

This panel will explore how the Central American diaspora can become a key actor in innovation, democratic strengthening, and economic and social development. Drawing on experiences such as Justicia en el Exilio and AGORA Coalition, the discussion will present models that combine protection, economic self-sufficiency, community organizing, and social innovation.

The conversation will invite participants to rethink the role of philanthropy—not only as a humanitarian response, but as a strategic investment in the capacities of people in exile. The goal is to explore sustainable models that strengthen the diaspora, reduce dependence on aid, and expand its contribution to host communities and to the democratic future of Central America.

Central America faces climate crises, shrinking civic space, and growing adverse impacts from business projects. In response, communities are implementing strategies to defend their territories and advance climate justice.

This interactive workshop, co-facilitated by PILnet, ProDESC, RADDH, and lawyers specializing in corporate accountability, will show how strategic legal alliances can strengthen territorial defense. Participants will learn to anticipate risks before projects cause irreversible harm, through contract analysis, the right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), and human rights due diligence.

Through real cases presented by RADDH and ProDESC to a “legal anticipation laboratory,” participants will identify gaps and risks and how legal support can contribute to preventive environmental and territorial defense strategies focused on corporate accountability.

Since 2022, El Salvador has lived under a state of exception that has led to over 92,000 detentions and serious human rights violations, documented by organizations such as the International Group of Experts for the Investigation of Human Rights Violations under the State of Emergency in El Salvador (GIPES) and Amnesty International.

Behind every figure is a mother carrying her own search for justice. Among the main hardships faced by these mothers and relatives of innocent people deprived of liberty are the impossibility of accessing family visits or obtaining proof of life for their sons and daughters; the opacity of the prison system, with people holding release orders who remain detained; the criminalization and stigmatization they face for demanding information; the anguish over the extreme vulnerability of loved ones who suffer or develop chronic illnesses in prison without adequate medical care; and the emotional, economic, and social cost the regime has imposed on their families and communities.

Spokeswomen from the collective Madres por la Libertad will share their testimonies in a space for horizontal dialogue, seeking to identify allies and sources of support for their peaceful struggle.

Network and exchange session takeaways with fellow CADF attendees while enjoying refreshments and light hors d’oeuvres.

Andrea Bolaños, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights, will speak with renowned Honduran journalist Jennifer Ávila about what she has seen repeat in several countries across the region: journalists and Indigenous leaders accused in court, pushed into exile, or silenced.

For the Rapporteur, protecting these individuals does not start with more security, but rather with first listening to the communities at risk. The conversation will explore how Central America can adapt protection to this moment, and what role international cooperation must play.

The rise of various forms of authoritarianism in the region and around the world challenges civil society to defend a democracy that has not only failed to fulfill its promise of development and well-being for the people but, in many cases, has been co-opted by networks of corruption.

Oxfam proposes a series of studies for collective analysis and reflection that reveals the causes and characteristics of young people’s ambivalence toward democracy and the way in which anti-democratic networks have embedded themselves within the state and colonized public debate.

The conversation will move from diagnosis to action, putting forward key strategies and tactics to address this ambivalence among citizens and to reconfigure the region’s anti-democratic networks through other forms of advocacy and coordination. These proposals are grounded in solid evidence and the perspectives of a diverse panel comprising academics and international development practitioners.

Network and exchange session takeaways with fellow CADF attendees while enjoying refreshments and light hors d’oeuvres.

What would an organization do if it suddenly lost a major source of funding or faced a new restriction?

In this interactive SembraMedia workshop, participants will assume the role of leaders of media and civil society organizations in Central America and will face real crisis scenarios and opportunities through a simulation game. In teams, and drawing on data and cases from the region, they will make strategic decisions, explore new revenue sources, and assess the capacity of their organizations to respond to uncertainty. The session will be a space to experiment, exchange perspectives, and identify practical tools for revenue diversification, risk management, organizational sustainability, and team well-being.

Many Central American nonprofits have faced challenges driven by reconfigurations in the political, economic, and funding landscapes. Amidst these disruptions, how do leaders know when the status quo is no longer sustainable? How can organizations and funders respond with resilience and continue generating impact? Fabretto Children’s Foundation and Seeds for Progress will share their processes of reinvention when faced with forced geographic shifts and loss of key donors. International Community Foundation will offer perspectives on supporting grantees with sustained, creative accompaniment in times of crisis. Attendees will also hear from Civic Strength Partners, a new global initiative helping organizations plan for organizational succession, mergers and partnerships, and protection of assets. Together, their experiences will illuminate the range of strategies that NGOs can consider when facing threats to their work, and donors’ role in supporting organizational strengthening and evolution.

Central America is facing a rapid transformation of its democratic security. The advance of authoritarianism, the concentration of power, and the expansion of transnational repression generate new dynamics of persecution, forced displacement, and the closing of civic space that transcend borders.

This panel analyzes these challenges from the experience of El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica and integrates a dual perspective: the technical rigor of regional organizations and the direct experience of leaders and defenders in exile.

Through case studies and successful models of collaboration, the session will highlight strategies for community resilience and identify concrete opportunities for funding and strategic investment. The goal is to strengthen international protection, defend civic space, and promote effective alliances among civil society, host states, and international cooperation in the face of authoritarianism.

Communities most exposed to climate change and environmental degradation are developing innovative solutions for adaptation and conservation across Central America. Partnerships among Indigenous, rural, and Afro-descendant women, conservation organizations, and funders are demonstrating new ways to design, implement, and finance initiatives grounded in the lived experiences and needs of local communities.

Drawing on Women for the MAR (Mesoamerican Reef Fund) and the Women’s Clinics (FUNDAECO), women community leaders will join implementing organizations and funders in a dialogue on how approaches centered on trust, flexibility, and co-creation with communities can strengthen women’s leadership and conservation-based livelihoods while advancing the sustainable management of natural resources. This conversation will identify principles for program design, collaboration, and sustainability that can be applied across sectors, from climate adaptation to community health and women’s economic empowerment.

Anti-democratic movements have learned how to coordinate, fund themselves, and expand their influence in Central America. What can civil society learn from that experience to respond better?

This panel responds to an urgent gap: while these movements act strategically and with long-term vision, many responses remain fragmented and reactive. Drawing on lessons from reproductive justice, one of the first fields where tactics that today impact other areas of democracy were tested, we will discuss how to anticipate risks, build alliances, and finance sustained responses. A session to move from analysis to action and strengthen democratic resilience in the region.

Pull up a seat at any lunch table and network with new connections. Find a table card featuring a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) that interests you to meet potential allies for your work.

Note: Space may be limited in the main lunch room. To accommodate all attendees, attendees will have access to lunch between 11:00am – 3:00pm. Lunch is available in the Cipres and Rosul rooms.

Led by experts from Civic Strength Partners, this session offers a space for learning and dialogue among civil society organization leaders who are actively exploring or navigating strategic transitions. Such transitions could include organizational succession, mergers and partnerships, and protection of assets during responsible closures. The workshop will draw on CSP’s existing facilitation materials and frameworks, with specific attention to local governance considerations and the political context shaping civil society transitions in the region. Participants will leave better equipped to make their own next decision, with a clear sense of the resources available to them for future accompaniment.

This session will be held in Spanish and operate under Chatham House rules to enable a candid and productive discussion. We ask that each organization limit participation to two colleagues.

Registration procedure: This is a closed-door workshop with a limit of 25 attendees. Advanced registration is required. Please indicate your interest in participating by filling out this survey by September 17.

Note: CSP will also offer office hours during CADF 2026 for organizations interested in learning more or discussing transition issues in greater depth. Click the link above to learn more.

Fundraising inadvertently creates competition and a scarcity mindset among organizations. Groups with similar focus and approach get pitted against each other, while funders face impossible decisions about who gets funded.

Reduced funding across Central America could deepen this dynamic—but that’s not always the case. Emerging models show how funders and organizations are building networks rooted in abundance and collaboration. The rapid rise of thematic networks that convert competitors into partners demonstrates how groups are achieving more with less, generating invaluable social capital in the process.

This session focuses on three groups: organizations, network managers, and donors. In a roundtable discussion featuring donors and network managers, we will explore the advantages, disadvantages, and best practices of these networks.

Guatemala combines internationally recognized macroeconomic stability with growth that has failed to transform the lives of its people. This panel calls this the “inertial growth trap”: low investment concentrated in a few sectors, sustained by rules that protect inherited privileges rather than rewarding merit.

In light of this diagnosis, this panel will present a transformative agenda across three fronts that must advance simultaneously: a more productive and sustainable economy that generates quality jobs; territorial planning that replaces colonial departments with functional metropolitan regions, alongside the closing of historical infrastructure gaps; and governance reform that dismantles state corporatism, strengthens competition, combats corruption, and builds institutions capable of coordinating development.

The Lempa River, which flows through Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, is suffering severe degradation due to mining, agrochemicals, deforestation, and wastewater. This pollution, compounded by climate change and the El Niño phenomenon, threatens the food security of over 5.4 million inhabitants and heightens the risk of social conflict. To avert a regional water crisis, experts propose a trinational treaty and a coordinated, multi-stakeholder, and multi-level governance mechanism.

The initiative will be presented by AMAES, an eco-feminist organization for environmental restoration; the Lempa River Trinational Border Association, which has over a decade of experience in local political advocacy in the Trifinio region; the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which supports environmental defenders and democracy; and UNES, which has promoted environmental protection in El Salvador for 25 years. This multi-stakeholder network aims to influence decision-makers across the three countries to restore this vital shared resource.

Opportunity is intangible until it can be reached. This panel unites funders, the Government of Guatemala, and communities to make rural access the foundation of education and inclusive economies in Central America.

Rural isolation cuts off women, Indigenous communities, and rural families from schools, markets, and employment. Nearly 70% of the rural population in Guatemala lacks permanent access to a main road. This panel brings together three development banks (the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB, and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, CAF), the Government of Guatemala, and community representatives to explore how resilient roads and pedestrian bridges generate employment, open up markets and tourism opportunities, and bring children to school. It draws on the World Bank’s US$400 million mobility program, the IDB’s road connectivity investments, CAF’s transport investments, and the pedestrian bridges and labor-intensive roads of Fika and Helvetas in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. This work has created employment, increased household incomes, boosted women’s economic empowerment, and increased school attendance: reasons to stay instead of migrating.

Organized youth in Central America sustain their work amid the progressive closing of civic space and persecution against those who defend human rights. Faced with this scenario, responding to the advance of authoritarianism has required strengthening coordination and trust among organizations across different territories.

Drawing on their experiences, this panel will explore how alliances, narratives, and collective care interweave to strengthen protection, organizational sustainability, and the capacity of movements to expand the reach of their action. Speakers will show that these elements form part of a shared strategy that strengthens their capacity for adaptation and advocacy.

Speakers will also explore the formats they use to narrate their realities and project their future, and they will reflect on the value of collaborative and networked work in strengthening democracy and human rights in the region.

This panel will bring together experiences from community-based organizations and young people building social transformation from within their own territories. Drawing on processes supported and funded by Global Fund for Children (GFC), we will explore how communities adapt, reinvent, and create methodologies to respond to their challenges while recognizing local knowledge and capacities.

RECARGA strengthens networks of trust and collaboration in Guatemala and Honduras to reimagine education; SEED supports early childhood care and development in Honduras; and HEEL co-creates new narratives with young people around masculinities and gender justice in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

This panel will explore youth leadership, collaboration, and peer learning, as well as the conditions that enable practices to be adapted to specific contexts, strengthen solutions from the grassroots, and connect them to broader change. GFC will facilitate a reflection on how accompaniment, flexible funding, and networks can sustain these processes without losing their territorial roots.

Rob Jentsch: Graduation Is Not Enough

In Guatemala, many young people finish secondary school and discover that a diploma does not always open a path to earning a viable income. Drawing from the experiences of young people and the organizations that support them, this talk asks how civil society organizations, employers, funders, and the public sector can build pathways to work that create value for everyone involved.

Félix Endara: Trans Cultural Archaeology: Solidarity Archives of Latin America

Félix Endara, Mesoamerica Program Officer at the Foundation for a Just Society (FJS), will address in this lightning talk how trans memory archives in Latin America are much more than just records and also serve as strategies for narrative change. Through the recovery of lost first-person stories, Felix will outline how trans archives use a cultural archaeology that challenges hate speech and anti-gender movements.

Brenda Xum: Building Social Change Leaders for Central America’s Future

The Ford Foundation’s International Fellowships Program (IFP), implemented by the Institute of International Education (IIE), expanded education opportunities for leaders from vulnerable communities globally, with impacts documented through IIE’s alumni tracking study. Guatemalan IFP alumna, Brenda Xum, will share how the program shaped her leadership journey and how targeted investment in education advances adaptation, sustainability, and economic inclusion.

Juan Enamorado: The Workshop That Led to a Cultural Center Protecting Rights in a Neighborhood

In 2022, during a CADF community philanthropy workshop, a round of introductions between the Women’s Enterprise Development Organization (ODEF ONGD) and Warriors Zulu Nation Honduras sparked a powerful alliance. Four years later, that roundtable became a cultural center in Chamelecón, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where children and youth have access to art, sports, and protection from violence. In this lightning talk, Juan Enamorado, Executive Director of Warriors Zulu Nation Honduras, will delve into those unlikely conversations that uphold rights and transform lives.

Valentina Vargas Ricca and Anita García Ortíz: Women with Disabilities: Feminist Resistance Against Anti-Rights Movements

One in five women worldwide has a disability. Amid today’s polycrisis, they face anti-rights movements and bear the brunt of climate change, patriarchal violence, ableist discrimination, and other overlapping forms of injustice. This talk will address the main trends experienced by feminist leaders with disabilities and will present key strategies they use to resist and dream of other futures in Central America and the world.

This session will explore how frontline nonprofits and social enterprises can generate earned income, develop hybrid models, and build capital relationships based on trust, resilience, and sovereignty.

Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and locally led social enterprises in Central America continue to receive insufficient funding from traditional capital systems, and are often asked to diversify their revenue and adopt hybrid models without the necessary infrastructure or professional development.

This workshop will explore how frontline leaders can strengthen their financial resilience and sovereignty with revenue-generating strategies based on trust and long-term partnerships. Practical pathways will be mapped to develop earned income models, donor programs, and other revenue sources that reduce dependence on grants and allow organizations to thrive on their own terms.

Network and exchange session takeaways with fellow CADF attendees while enjoying a range of refreshments.

Please check back soon for information about this session.