IGS 2025
About IGS 2025’s Skill-Building Workshops
A Q&A with Loren Previti, Vice President of Grants Services at CAF America
The 2025 IGS will feature an exciting new type of session, in the form of our International Grantmaking Workshops. These workshops will focus on real-life examples that engage participants in complex problems and activate them to apply core concepts of grantmaking to non-standard grantees. While the exact content of the workshops will be shared with registered attendees in advance of the Symposium, we sat down with Loren Previti, CAF America’s VP of Grants Services, to learn more about what you can expect from this innovative new program:
Q: First, tell us a bit about yourself and your work at CAF America
A: That’s a great question. In my role at CAF America, I oversee our teams that negotiate grant agreements, vet organizations for compliance with our due diligence protocols, and collect and review the reports they submit to us for alignment with our pre-approved grant purposes. Overall, our team approves over 3,500 charities a year and we oversee tens of thousands of annual grant disbursements across our portfolio. For this year’s IGS, I’ve worked to identify the best possible case studies to bring to life through our workshops.
Q: Tell us more about these workshops. What can attendees expect from them?
A: I’d say that the biggest takeaway I’d like people to leave these workshops with is a better understanding of how a risk-based approach to grantmaking can open up more opportunities for recipients of grant funding from the U.S. We’ll be asking our attendees to figure out how to ‘get to yes’ on some challenging grants, and allow them to experiment with the fundamental tools of cross-border grantmaking. This year, the IGS is focused on partnerships, so we’ll be curating a list of real-life grants that we have made to unique grantees – public sector partners, private companies, and grantees working in high-risk humanitarian settings.
Q: How do the workshops fit into the schedule of the IGS this year?
A: These sessions are really the core of our skill-building activities for the 2025 program. We’re excited to be digging into the nuts and bolts of our work. Over the years feedback from previous attendees has called out for this type of interactive activity, and we’re doubling down on using our time together to drive towards tangible learning outcomes.
The workshops themselves are scheduled in the morning and afternoon on the second day of IGS, Thursday April 10.
Q: How have you selected the case studies?
A: We looked at our overall portfolio and identified grants that we thought showcased a unique angle or set of skills that could be used to inspire different ways of thinking. A lot of our work involves exploring the regulations that underpin the work that we do, in a way that enables more funding to flow to grantees. We really want to help others see how they too can set these relationships up for success.
Q: What will attendees take away from the workshops?
A: One of the most interesting things about the IGS – and the education we do generally – is that many people do this work as the only person, or one of a small team, on grantmaking within a wider organization. The power of these workshops is that we will convene a group of grantmakers who don’t always get to connect with one another to practice solving problems and challenges we all run into over the course of our work. We hope that these workshops allow attendees to practice these approaches and deploy new tools to understand how to push boundaries in developing new and exciting partnerships, in a safe space where we can all learn from each other.
Q: Will we be seeing you in Miami in April?
A: Of course you will! And, I’ll also be helping to deliver our Grantmaking Fundamentals sessions, happening online and in person in the lead-up to the opening lunch of IGS. If anyone feels like they need to brush up on some of the tools of our trade, I recommend you register for those, which is an option as you sign up for IGS.
