A Call for Community Diplomacy: Sister Cities International 2010 Conference

This week we launch our 54^th Annual Conference in Albuquerque, NM bringing together more than 500 citizen diplomats and youth from 20+ countries to discuss community diplomacy.

We three top tier keynote speakers. Our opening speaker is from the design consulting firm Continuum. Anna Munio will challenge attendees to think about ‘how’ they approach problem solving in our network between communities. Continumm has been in the middle of creative thinking commercially for a long time (heard of the Swiffer? That was them!) but over the past few years they have expanded their practice to apply their concepts and solutions to social problems. The nonprofit buzz word is social innovation – I think our audience-goers will realize they’ve been social innovators long before it became trendy.

See below about national arts figure Robert Lynch's role at the conference.

Our closing speaker is Leanne Rios from the United Nations to talk about the U.N.’s progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. With an endzone of 2015, some countries are making serious progress while other problems seem to be getting worse. Rios will address a specific campaign to stop hunger.

In our other sessions, we plan to cover the globe in our own way:

• Africa and Mexico have their own tracks on Thursday, letting delegates dig deep into
  discussion and hear more about our urban poverty grant program.


• Arts and cultural programs have been the foundation of many local sister city programs for decades. This subject gets its own track facilitated by seasoned journalist Alicia Anstead in a series of interviews (featuring Americans for the Arts President & CEO Robert Lynch), discussions, and workshops on Thursday as well.


• On Friday, we are introducing a new educational model to our sessions: Sister Cities University. These three sessions on fundraising, Social Media, and Volunteer Management are designed to get members to roll up their sleeves and hear how experts and members programs address the topics while providing real-time answers and
  tips to problems.


• Friday has turned into a nonstop day of workshops and panels on: the Muslim World, Green/Energy exchanges, economic development, volunteer management, youth and multiculturalism, social media, fundraising, elected officials, and crisis management case study. See full schedule.

While I can’t recommend one over another one without getting into trouble with one group of the panelists over others (although I am moderating the fundraising one!), I have to say
hearing directly from local elected officials is always insightful.

Divide and conquer, there’s something for everyone. Learn, exchange ideas, energize your program and our network.