Overview:
What if AI, Web3, and blockchain weren’t tools of disruption—but of coordination, care, and community control?
In this Imagination Circle, we reframe emerging technologies not as ends in themselves, but as infrastructures for reimagining how philanthropy and capital move, who decides, who benefits, and how value is shared.
Today’s systems of funding and innovation often reinforce top-down control, extractive logics, and inequitable power dynamics. This session brings together funders, technologists, and community leaders to collectively imagine how technology can support new models of collective governance, trust-based giving, and regenerative investment.
What might it look like to build funding ecosystems rooted in solidarity, not scarcity?
Together, we will:
-Examine the default assumptions embedded in philanthropy and capital flow, efficiency, competition, donor control and explore how they mirror extractive tech
-Explore how AI, blockchain, and Web3 can serve as coordination tools for decentralized governance, transparent distribution, and community-led decision-making
-Experiment with AI to surface the many ways communities already give, share, and generate value – from time and care, to data and local knowledge – and explore asset generating models that recognize, value and activate a broader ecosystem of community assets.
-Engage in imagination sprints to share hacks of new models, such as:
A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) for mutual aid funding
AI-enabled tools to surface community-defined priorities and redistribute resources accordingly
*Blockchain-based systems for participatory budgeting or climate reparations
-Co-create a poetic harvest of what liberatory, tech-enabled philanthropic infrastructures could look like in 2040
We will use storytelling, speculative design, and systems thinking to explore how we can shift power from funders to communities, and from platforms to people.
Who It’s For:
No technical expertise needed—just a commitment to transformation.
Co-participants will leave with:
-A reimagined view of AI, Web3, and blockchain as tools for community coordination and systemic change
-New relationships and shared language for building post-extractive ecosystems of philanthropy and tech
-Experience creating new ideas through storytelling and collective imagination
Hosts:
Michelle Baldwin, Associate, Equity Cubed; Co-Founder AI for Social Impact Collaborative; Faculty Governance Leadership Ethics, Huron University College; SuperBenefit DAO https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellebaldwin/, in Canada
Alexandra Stef, Collective Learning & Innovation, Inspire Change https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-stef/, in Spain
Sonja Miokovic, Consulting Director, Community Innovation, Tamarack Institute https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonjamiokovic/
Michelle Baldwin is a network builder, systems thinker, productive disruptor and cross sector collaborator. Michelle is currently an associate with Equity Cubed, a fractional executive services for social innovators and early stage startups to maximize social and financial returns. Previously and during this interview Michelle was Senior Advisor, Transformation at Community Foundations of Canada where she explored how to unlock the potential to transform capital and philanthropy for futures where everyone belongs. Currently, she is doing a deep dive into the potential of emerging technology (AI, web3 and blockchain) to reimagine power and shift systems in philanthropy and communities. She is a faculty member in the Governance, Leadership, Ethics program at Huron University College. In her past role as Executive Director, Pillar Nonprofit Network she co-founded and collaborated to create Innovation Works, a shared space for social innovators and VERGE Capital, a social finance program for Southwestern Ontario.
Collective Learning and Innovation Director at Inspire Institute, an organization supporting the emergence of new collaboration and philanthropy infrastructure centered on systems change.
Participation and learning designer at Collective Futures, a consultancy supporting communities to imagine and prototype futures where people and planet thrive together.
Sonja Miokovic is a network weaver and creative strategist passionate about building community and sparking systems change. She has co-founded initiatives like YouthfulCities and led programs with UNICEF and Artscape. As Consulting Director at the Tamarack Institute, she supports funders, nonprofits, and grassroots leaders in co-creating equitable, place-based solutions for lasting social impact. Her specialty lies in designing and hosting creative, interactive experiences and supporting collective sensemaking. With experience in more than 90 countries, Sonja brings a global perspective, entrepreneurial spirit and deep commitment to community innovation — helping leaders and organizations design bold collaborations, deepen community impact, and reimagining the places we live, work and play. She is also a proud member of the Wasan Network, a collective of social impact practitioners who believe relationships are at the heart of social transformation.
Melanie Hui believes that lasting progress happens when people have power to shape
their lives. This principle has guided her career, from building a community-led clean
water franchise in rural Bangladesh to her current role as CEO of Luminate.
At Luminate, a philanthropic foundation established by Pierre and Pam Omidyar,
Melanie guides a global team working at the intersection of technology, rights, and
justice. She champions a strategy focused on supporting the ecosystem of advocates,
organisers, and innovators who are working to make technology a tool for justice and
opportunity.