{"id":832922,"date":"2026-05-30T18:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/832922\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T18:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:51:19","slug":"san-diego-nonprofits-urged-to-meet-the-moment-amid-rapid-societal-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/832922\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego nonprofits urged to ‘meet the moment’ amid rapid societal change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Grant<\/a>Grant Oliphant speaks on the last day of the WAVES Festival in Balboa Park. (Photo by Chris Jennewein\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

At a time of political uncertainty and technological revolution, leaders of San Diego\u2019s nonprofit community were urged this week to \u201cmeet the moment\u201d with new ideas \u2014 and greater humanity.<\/p>\n

Over 300 leaders of nonprofit organizations and philanthropic funders gathered in Balboa Park on Thursday and Friday for a unique two-day conference organized by Prebys Foundation<\/a>, the city\u2019s largest private foundation.<\/p>\n

It was the second WAVES Festival<\/a>. The event \u2014 whose name is an acronym for the key goals of well-being, art, vision, entrepreneurship and science \u2014 may become an annual gathering.<\/p>\n

Prebys Foundation said the intent was to engage San Diego\u2019s changemakers in meaningful conversations about the future of health, politics, education, bi-national relations, technology, arts and culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cGathering together to listen and wrestle with difficult questions, and imagine new possibilities together, is one of the oldest ways that human beings make meaning, find their new purpose and move forward,\u201d said Grant Oliphant<\/a>, president and CEO of Prebys Foundation. \u201cThat really is the spirit of WAVES.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants heard from 19 visionaries in diverse fields, from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman<\/a>, Scripps Research scientist Eric Topol<\/a> and TED Talks steward Sal Khan<\/a>, to playwright Ins Choi<\/a>, Tijuana chef Ruffo Ibarra<\/a>, best-selling poet Rupi Kaur<\/a> and hip-hop artist Miki Vale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The topics were wide-ranging: human longevity, the threat \u2014 and opportunity \u2014 from artificial intelligence, the central importance of the arts, the changing role of journalism, the unique potential of a bi-national economy, the value of the immigrant experience, the rise of hate and how to counter it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are we collectively going to do in this community to build the kind of future we want for San Diego?\u201d Oliphant asked that the end of the conference. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have the answer to that for you,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope that as a result of these two days you have some really cool ideas\u2026that people walk out of this room on fire with the desire to do some things in a heightened way to build the community that we all dream is possible here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grant Oliphant speaks on the last day of the WAVES Festival in Balboa Park. (Photo by Chris Jennewein\/Times…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":832923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[691,5229,648,1582,276,392,409,15418,7585,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,341596],"class_list":["post-832922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-ai","tag-america","tag-arts","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-culture","tag-immigration","tag-nonprofits","tag-prebys-foundation","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-waves-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116665036771970679","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}