In Short
🧭 What: Participant-driven Working & Community event for people ambitious to reduce and prevent suffering for all sentient beings, near and long-term.
📅 When: 27-31 August 2026 (program runs from Thursday afternoon to Sunday evening)
📍Where: Berlin, Germany, Sterntal-Havelland
📣 As of 20 February 2026, applications are now open 🤗
Apply HereIn Detail
About the Event
This participant-driven working and community weekend will bring together around 50 ambitious, international attendees and project representatives eager to reduce and prevent suffering long-term.
In advance of the Summit, attendees will be required to and supported in preparing their own content contributions thoroughly. From the opening of the application process until the start of the event, you will have several months and multiple opportunities for individual pre-event support and preparation calls to answer questions you may have and strengthen the impact-focused reasoning behind your content.
Content will be developed with the following questions in mind:
- What are Crucial Considerations for impact of your project, donations, career plans or content development?
- What are your considerations in regard to near-term impact, including importance, tractability, neglectedness (ITN), risk-benefit trade-offs, and counterfactuals?
- What is your SMART Theory of Change for your involvement? Please include consideration in regard to outcome robustness and implementation robustness.
- What are plausible long-term trajectories (evolution, obstacles, risks, benefits, and counterfactuals) over 10, 50, and 200 years?
- And what are your personal fit, motivation and development plans?
Program and Focus Areas
The program will include content contributions from all participants, focusing on impact opportunities with near-term applications and great scalability and sustainability potential for the long-term future. Cause areas may be:
- Global Health & Wellbeing
- Incl. Compassionate Genomics
- Farmed and Wild Animal Rights & Wellbeing
- Institutional Decision-Making & Global Peace
- Incl. Safeguarding Democracy
- Artificial Intelligence - Risks & Opportunities
- Moral Philosophy & Moral Psychology
- Effective Giving & Earning-to-Give
In addition to these and other topics, the summit will feature sessions that promote personal growth and community, such as Circling, playful activities, and self-reflection sessions using participation-promoting workshop tools like Liberating Structures.
Accommodation and Catering
Participants will enjoy all-vegan full-board catering and accommodation in two spacious, barrier-free guest houses, with shared rooms ranging from doubles to six-bed dormitories.
A limited number of participants may also join as day guests - for example, if they prefer or require a more private sleeping arrangement.
How to Get Involved
The event organisers will be reaching out directly to some particularly exciting project representatives to invite them to the event.
However, you are also warmly encouraged to contact the organising team if you would like to present your own project, or if there are specific individuals or organisations you believe should be represented and align with the impact-focused reasoning outlined above.
Please feel free to contact the organisers via event.orga [at] compassionate-future.org.
Please apply if…
…you think this event could increase your impact!
The following criteria will primarily guide the selection of volunteers and attendees:
- Volunteers:
- Suitability for assisting in a broad range of tasks
- High-quality content contributions and expertise
- Attendees:
- High-quality content contributions and expertise
- “Low-hanging fruits” of impact: applicants who are positioned to launch high-impact projects or careers soon, and whose impact would greatly benefit from attending the event
- Community and Diversity Goals:
- Growing a diverse and resourceful community
- Identifying applicants with strengths in fostering an inclusive, positive & healthy community atmosphere
The organisers are committed to making the application process valuable and a connecting experience for all applicants, while ensuring the event's maximal impact.
Apply Here
Looks interesting, but I am actually not fully sure what this is? A hackathon? A conference with presentations of the projects?
Hi Richie, thanks for your interest and question!
It was indeed not easy to label this event.
At its core, it's an accountability & working retreat. Participants prepare their contributions thoroughly in advance, and the summit itself becomes a milestone - a deadline and a reward for that work, and a new jumping off point after being able to get feedback and new inspiration from presenting and discussing their work and from learning and engaging with other people's work.
And it's not that everyone has to have a project in the classical sense. Attendees will work on their contribution to impact, while acknowledging their different stages in their development and ways they want to contribute. They can work out and present new education and career strategies, earning-to-give and effective giving strategies, or project ideas and project developments.
I drew from many different event formats, keeping only the elements that best stimulate impact-driven development while creating a nurturing environment for sustainable ambition and growth.
I moved away from labels like 'conference,' 'retreat,' or 'unconference', and never considered ‘hackathon’ because each carries connotations that don't quite fit. It’s not a programming event, conferences feel less nurturing and save to experiment, while retreats and unconferences in my experience don’t focus enough on impact. Community and fun absolutely have a place at the summit, but in service of the work, not instead of it.
I hope that answers your question. :)