Registration is Open for Two Upcoming Sozosei Foundation Convenings

As I look forward to the 2024 Sozosei Summit to Decriminalize Mental Illness from April 16-17, 2024, and our March 1, 2024, Virtual Convening on 988, I am reminded that convenings can be a philanthropic superpower.?Ideally, they foster collaboration, provide a landscape to share insights, and kick-start or advance common goals. When they are at their best, convenings can help develop meaningful and actionable solutions. Of course, convenings can also fall short.

I personally hate conferences. I really do. Why? Because there are typically too few opportunities to talk with people, too few disruptive opportunities that make me pause or think differently, and participants and audiences are often brought together based upon what makes them similar to one another, rather than designing for diverse voices. Worse still, conferences are often held in bland environments with poor lighting and inadequate fresh air (and the food is typically awful to boot). It is worth noting that philanthropic convenings are particularly susceptible to poor outcomes due in large part to the power dynamic between funders and grantees and/or hopeful grantees.

The good news in all of this is: having strong opinions about what does not work is often an easy gateway to figuring out what does work. At the Sozosei Summit and our convenings, we are clear about our goals:

• Foster new collaborations and strengthen existing ones
• Provide participants with the opportunity to think differently about their work
• Build and support an inclusive and diverse community
• Learn new things, share best practices, spark curiosity, and think creatively
• Catalyze action to accelerate the decriminalization of mental illness

To help us reach these goals, we also aim to convene in beautiful spaces full of light, air, and art.

Your input enables us to measure if we are meeting these goals, and your responses to post-Summit surveys have helped us to curate the Summit year after year. This year, we have designed the Summit in response to your feedback and have created additional space and time in the agenda to allow participants to come together, discuss what they have learned, and brainstorm about pathways forward. We are calling these sessions “Action Tracks” and are eager to determine — with your input — if there is an interest in continuing those discussions after the Summit and through 2024.

I sincerely hope to see you at the Summit from April 16–17, 2024. Please register here and note: there are only 265 seats and, while the Summit will be recorded, we are not live-streaming the Summit this year.

Additionally, in advance of the Summit, I hope you will join us for our virtual event titled,?988 and Other Numbers: What the Data Tells Us So Far. This will be the first convening in our Sozosei Summit Solution Lab series. On March 1, we will explore recent research findings related to 988 in order to inform the creation of a robust and human-centered crisis care continuum across the nation.?Learn more and register?here.

Finally, if you are in the DC area, you may wish to get tickets to see?The?Definition of Insanity,?a documentary about the Miami Center for Mental Health & Recovery – a Sozosei Foundation grantee – at the JxJ DC Jewish Film & Music Festival. The event will feature panel discussions to illuminate the role of the courts in decriminalizing mental illness. Click?here?to learn more.

Thank you for being a part of the effort to decriminalize mental illness. I wish you joy and good health and sincerely hope to see you April 16 – 17, 2024, in Philadelphia.

Warmest Regards,

Melissa M. Beck, Esq. Executive Director Sozosei Foundation