March/ April 2018 Newsletter

University of Denver, Center for Middle East Studies

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

In early 2018, GPD Charitable Trust granted $10K to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) to initiate new ideas and programming and strengthen the longstanding partnership between the Chicago Council of Global Affairs for Next Generation and the Aspen Institute’s Socrates Program. GPD’s grant enabled the partnering organizations to host a March 2018 ‘American Values in a Global Age’ salon discussion held in Chicago. The Trust committed an additional $50K to the Next Generation efforts at the Council to continue their important work.

“I’d like to say a special thank you to John DeBlasio for his support of our partnership with Aspen Socrates and for the vision of bringing these two institutions together. We are grateful that the Next Generation portfolio at the Council benefits from your thought leadership!” - Rachael Mizuno, Director, Next Gen

Center for the Study of Civil Military Operations at West Point  

In April 2018, the Center for the Study of Civil Military Operations (CSCMO) held its third annual Africa Symposium and its sixth Student Workshop on Civil Military Operations Conference (SWCMO) at West Point, NY with the support of gift from the USMA Class of 1978. The SWCMO Conference was developed to create a focused venue for student development and learning within the realm of Civil Military Operations and and to prepare graduates to work alongside the diverse and wide array of partners they will encounter in today’s operating environment. The subject of this year’s SWCMO Conference was 'operating in dense urban environments’ and featured guest speakers that had recently returned from Mosul Iraq and Raqqa Syria who shared their experiences with cadets and faculty as well as a keynote conversation with former C.S.A., GEN (Ret) Ray Odierno.   

Thanks to the generous support of the USMA class of 1978 the SWCMO will continue in perpetuity.

Other CSCMO news: Please join GPD in congratulating LTG (Ret) Hunzeker who was recently named Distinguished Chair of the Center for the Study of Civil Military Operations at West Point.  

Stardust Fund creates partnership between The Iraq Leadership Fellows Program + iLEAP

This April, the GPD Stardust Fund launched a partnership between the Iraq Leadership Fellows Program and iLEAP to train select Iraqi Fellows and prepare them to lead transformative social and political movements in Iraq and across the Middle East. The organizations, which both focus on leadership development in the social sector, partnered after iLEAP’s proven record of success with longtime GPD Partner, Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH).  The iLEAP-GPD partnership is underway as of this April and we will be sure keep you updated on the progress of these two grantees’ success.

For updates on our activities with GPD’s smaller grantees, please visit the Stardust Fund page.