Spiritual Civilization Day - Where Inner Work and Outer Action Meet

The Spiritual Civilization Community Day was a space of reconnection, conversation, and reflection on inner work and why it matters, the diverse contexts of practice, and what we can learn from the work among our Global Philanthropic Circle members and partners.

Centering the Synergos Global Gathering theme, United for Collective Action, the Spiritual Civilization Programme exists to deepen and amplify the role of inner work as a catalytic force for systems transformation, social healing, and collaborative leadership rooted in purpose.

It was heart-warming to see long-standing community members, philanthropists, newer faces, researchers, and practitioners who wanted to be in a space where deep connection and reflective conversation are valued. This reflection captures what unfolded.

For those who were there, it may bring the day back. For those who weren't, it is an invitation in — beginning with Peggy Dulany’s opening meditative and embodied grounding.  The check-in question lingers:  What do you appreciate about yourself?

How this community began, and what it has become

Marlene Ogawa opened the morning by inviting Melissa Durda to share the journey of the Spiritual Civilization group. Melissa explained that this is a community within a community: one that was requested by Global Philanthropic Circle members themselves. In 2012, members asked for a dedicated space, within the larger Synergos gatherings, to explore the intersection of philanthropy, contemplative practice, and spirituality: to hear each other's stories of how inner work had shaped their lives and their giving, and not just to talk but to experience inner work together.

Fourteen years on, the group has run retreats organised by Synergos and hosted by members, brought in practitioners, and produced the podcast series Cultivate the Soul: Stories of Purpose-Driven Philanthropy, available online. Melissa gave particular thanks to the Fetzer Institute, a key long-standing partner in this work.

Elliot Donnelley II, an early member, described it as "a family within a family." He spoke of the depth of connections formed here how the community led him to people like Jason Yotopoulos, how it has underpinned companies he has started, including a new nonprofit in artificial intelligence, and how much of it reflects Peggy's early conviction that inner work is what makes outer change possible.

Camille Massey added that this thread within Synergos, connecting inner work directly to outer impact, is what drew her in from the beginning.  It is something that Synergos, with Fetzer, is actively growing and seeking to connect to networks beyond its own.

Jenna Nicholas and Wayne Silby: on spirituality, business, and the long arc of purpose

Jenna Nicholas is the president of Light Post Capital and author of Enlightened Bottom Line — a Stanford alumna, an active member of the Bahá'í faith.  Wayne Silby is the founding chairman of the Calvert Group, now a $40 billion fund and one of the pioneering forces in socially responsible investing.  Jenna and Wayne have been each other’s thought partners for sixteen years. Their conversation was a joy to witness: a beautiful intergenerational friendship, openly shared.

Wayne traced his path from a Right Livelihood conference in New Hampshire where he first asked what his work was really for, to founding one of the first social investment funds in the late 1970s. That work eventually gave rise to the Social Venture Network, Impact Assets (now a $5 billion donor-advised fund), and Calvert Impact Capital, which has made billions in loans to underserved communities.

He spoke about Buddhist concepts of basic goodness and idiot compassion.  The process of giving that feels good, but doesn't go deep. He asked: Do you focus on the individual starfish, or the ecosystem? Wayne gave the example of an income-based student loan initiative in Latin America, an idea that seemed far-fetched twenty years ago, which Calvert invested in and which the Obama administration later scaled to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jenna spoke about seven-generations thinking, and the HEAL framework from her book: Hope, Empathy, Abundance, Legacy. When Wayne asked about the most difficult experiences of her life, she named being present at the deaths of her mother and grandmother, to whom the book is dedicated.

The story she shared was of her grandmother Stella, who ran a fashion store in London. On a busy day, an unusual woman came in. Stella stopped everything to be with her. Weeks later, the woman returned to say that on that day she had been thinking of taking her life, and that conversation had changed her mind. The most significant acts, Jenna said, are often the smallest: simply being fully present with the person in front of you.

Chun Dong: a practice of standing still

Chun Dong led the room through a practice from the Tai Chi system called the KAN-LI TaiJi Energy Nourishing Practice.  This practice uses gentle movement and awareness to ground presence, release tension, and reconnect mind, body, and spirit. The energetic field was felt across the room, as was a sense of deep interconnection.

Chun is the founder of two foundations. Intelli Alliance Foundation cultivates inner joy and peacefulness through events, retreats, education, and personal transformation programs. Atrium Legacy Foundation empowers communities through four initiatives: Holistic Aging, Empathy Education, Resilient Housing, and Global Harvest.

For those who want to know more please reach out to Chun Dong via the Synergos Network Platform.  Also see an August 2026 Awakening Retreat to Experience the Transformative Power of KAN-LI TaiJi, hosted by Intelli Alliance Foundation and Fetzer Institute : https://network.synergos.org/networks/events/272157  

Jason Yotopoulos: the science of energy healing

Jason Yotopoulos, founder of the Emerald Gate Charitable Trust, presented research his organisation has been funding at tier-one universities — Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Tufts, and MD Anderson Cancer Center — into the intersection of consciousness and healing. Jason distinguished between what the data shows and what remains interpretation or conjecture.

Two studies stood out.

The first examined Reiki and chronic pain, in the largest clinical trial of its kind. Conducted with Harvard and the University of Utah, it compared Reiki, a leading mindfulness protocol, and a carefully designed placebo control. Participants received thirty minutes of Reiki weekly for four weeks. Reiki performed on par with the mindfulness protocol. Both significantly outperformed the controls, and both produced results better than opioids, with no side effects. The deeper implication was not simply that Reiki works, but what it suggests about how: if the results mirror those of a known mind-body practice, the data may be pointing toward something more intimate and more mysterious — that one person's inner state can reach across space and alter the physiology of another.

The second study brought that possibility into sharper relief. A five-year investigation into pancreatic cancer, conducted at MD Anderson under Dr. Lorenzo Cohen and held to drug-approval research standards, found that energy healing reduced cancer cell growth.  Most strikingly, it inhibited the cancer's ability to spread. These effects were observed in cells, in mice, and in human cells placed in mice. Within ten minutes of a healer beginning their work, a measurable bioelectric shift occurred: cells moving from fully depolarised to hyperpolarised. The independent advisory board, composed of leading pancreatic cancer specialists, could find no fault in the methodology and recommended the research continue. A Faraday cage did not stop the effect, which means known electromagnetic forces do not explain it. Something to sit with: "Maybe we are spending a lot of time looking at one another as the objects. Maybe we should be looking at the ocean we are all subsumed in."

Read more about the study here: https://www.phenomenahealing.com/mdandersonresearch

See the Emerald Gate Charitable Trust research work: https://emeraldgatefoundation.org/research-projects/

Mayra Hernández González: crystals as tools for conscious change

Mayra Hernández González, founder and CEO of IXIM and co-founder of Instituto Xilonen, invited the room into a deeper reflection on intention, presence, and the subtle ways transformation unfolds. What resonated most was her understanding that beauty, peace, and humility are not qualities we seek externally but capacities we cultivate within. Her work with crystals is, at its core, a practice of listening: to life, to others, and to one's own inner wisdom.

Over ten years, that practice has grown from 25 countries to 102, through partnerships including the Wellbeing Project and Nest. The underlying premise of the crystal grid is that more people consciously tending to crystals raises the collective energy of the earth. This is an invitation to recognise the interconnectedness of inner transformation and collective wellbeing.

Her words stayed in the room: "Beauty and peace come from within. Humility is the ability to listen: to others, to life, and to ourselves."

An open offer from Mayra to the Spiritual Civilization Community: Individual sessions for any Synergos member, as a genuine extension of the work. Find out more at: https://institutoxilonen.com

The closing session: asks, offers, and commitments

The day closed with small groups sharing what they were taking forward:

• A toolkit of inner-work practices: sound healing, Reiki, crystals, meditation — mapped by city and region, so members can find and support one another between gatherings.
• A working group on intuition education: mapping programs that teach alternative ways of knowing and helping members find the right teachers for where they are.
• A call for deepened collaboration centring indigenous and ancient wisdom, and working with indigenous elders at the intersections of leadership, climate, inner work, and wellbeing.
• An impromptu meditation grounded the group into the moment — a reminder of how easily we shift from heart to head, and the importance of returning.
• A closing invitation: that each person take seriously their own role in building bridges, not only inside Synergos but in their own communities and lives.