Not Bigger, Just Better: Segal Connect 2025
We did it again, everyone! The second iteration of Segal Connect took place last month, in the Tanzanian coastal city of Dar es Salaam – and it was awesome. Similar to what we did last year in Malawi, this was a curated space for our grantee partners and funder friends to strengthen and widen collaborative networks in the host region.
Over the week of 5-9 May, the staples featured again: a donor salon, partner sessions, a summit that brought everybody together, and the gala dinner. This time, however, there were more wellbeing options on offer—including a sensory room supported by Kyaro Assistive Tech (one of our disability-serving grantee partners), a cozy wellness nook, and a therapist facilitated by TAHMEF. The wellness rooms were a direct response to the reality that we’re not all people people and that, as unstressful as the gathering was intended to be, the repetitive self-introductions and shop talk can still get draining. To help our guests recharge, there were also kiosks laden with madafu (coconut water), fresh tropical fruits, and coffee served the Tanzanian street way—accompanied by kashata to sweeten the tiny cups of bitter brew. These stalls also served as natural gathering points for a quick chat, and down on the shore dhow boat rides offered a more adventurous form of the same. For those desiring a bit of beautification the coastal Swahili way, henna artists were on hand (pun maybe intended); this fun offering was surprisingly popular, and the various tattoos became an unofficial Segal Connect identifier. Some attendees who had stepped out of the hotel gates were easily let back in by a guard who saw their henna and remarked, “Oh, you’re with the conference!”
Alongside all the fun (and very Instagrammable photos) were deeply meaningful learning experiences. This year, two whole days of the Segal Connect 2025 schedule were allocated to site visits—an upgrade from last year, where site visit options were few and limited to donors. This time, all attendees had the chance to sign up for a site visit; 10 of our grantee partners on the mainland and on the Zanzibar archipelago hosted and did an excellent job showcasing their work to multiple groups over the two days. We are particularly glad that this was possible because while we do share partner due diligence with our funder friends, it goes that much further when a prospective donor gets to see the work in person.
Segal Connect 2025 was loosely structured, deliberately so to allow for time for attendees to actually connect and also to just rest—and for our peer funders to interact as just people. Too often funders are swarmed by grant hopefuls at conferences and end up taking meeting after meeting to the detriment of their wellbeing and participation; we heard about this after Segal 2023 and were determined for it not to be the case again. It is for this reason that we also chose to issue the same type of nametag across non-staff attendees: not visibly categorizing attendees as funders or as implementers meant interactions could be more organic and less selective. By the closing dinner that Friday, it was obvious that all these new efforts had borne fruit and it was a joy to see guests mingling comfortably with one another having become familiar during the course of the week. This was the entire point. As Anne Simon of Secodev aptly sums it up, “What an incredible dynamic you have created. It is truly impressive to see the energy you pour into your programs and how powerfully you ignite leadership among your grantees and partners and animate your network of thinkers, doers, and funders.”
