Category Archives: Events

Fail Festival is an endless movement to talk honestly about failure in philanthropy and development.

Fail Festivals are crash and burn parties around the world to celebrate failure as a mark of leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs.

Here are a few of our more famous public events.

You can organize your own Fail Festival, or get professional help to curate a great Fail Festival at your next event.

Fail Festival DC 2016

fail festival DC 2016

Fail Festival – a celebration of failure as a mark of leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs.

Failure is the f-word of international development. Unspoken in polite company, but a reality in our work. We’re often in market failure environments, so who are we to expect success 100% of the time?

That’s why its time for Fail Festival 2016. We are on a mission to make failure acceptable in development discussions. There is great value in examining our mistakes and learning from failure as we go beyond the easy and the simple.
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Fail Festival DC 2015

Fail Fest DC 2015

Fail Festival – a celebration of failure as a mark of leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs.

Failure is the f-word of international development. Unspoken in polite company, but a reality in our work. We’re often in market failure environments, so who are we to expect success 100% of the time?

That’s why its time for Fail Festival 2015. We are on a mission to make failure acceptable in development discussions. There is great value in examining our mistakes and learning from failure as we go beyond the easy and the simple.

Join us for the 5th annual event, and expect much laughter as 300 of your peers and colleagues navel-gaze at where we have all gone wrong in international development… and learn how not to star in next year’s Fail Festival.
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Fail Festival SLUSH Impact

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Failure is the f-word of international development. Unspoken in polite company, but a reality in our work. We are often working in failed states, in market failure environments, on some of the most intractable human issues – who are we to expect success 100% of the time?

So we must celebrate failure, and we did at Fail Festival SLUSH Impact – the crash and burn party for positive social and environmental impact initiatives.
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Fail Festival UK 2015

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Failure is the f-word of international development. Unspoken in polite company, but a reality in our work. We’re often in market failure environments, so who are we to expect success 100% of the time?

That’s why its time for the third Fail Festival UK. Building on Fail Faire UK 2012 and Fail Fest UK 2014, we are on a mission to make failure acceptable in development discussions. There is great value in examining our mistakes and learning from failure as we go beyond the easy and the simple.

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Fail Festival DC 2014

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Fail Festival – a celebration of failure as a mark of leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs.

Failure is the f-word of international development. Unspoken in polite company, but a reality in our work. We’re often in market failure environments, so who are we to expect success 100% of the time?

That’s why it was time for Fail Festival 2014, our 4th annual event, where we had much laughter as 300 of our peers and colleagues navel-gazed at where we have all gone wrong in international development… and learned how not to star in next year’s Fail Festival.
Continue reading Fail Festival DC 2014