Announcing the speaker lineup and breakout sessions for our 2017 Annual Conference

Brid­ging the Divide: Building Community in Illinois kicks off October 18-19 in Springfield. For the first time since 2012, we’ll again gather nonprofit professionals, grantmakers, and social change agents to collaborate, network, learn, and leverage their collective perspective to strengthen all of our Illinois communities.  

Today we are thrilled to announce the speaker lineup and breakout sessions! It's a great list you can sample here; to dive in to full descriptions visit our full Annual Conference Page.

Speaker Highlights

Opening Keynote: Jan Masoaka

Jan Masaoka is the Chief Executive Officer of the California Association of Nonprofits. She is a thought leader on nonprofit organizations with particular emphasis on boards of directors, business planning, and the role of nonprofits in society. At Bridging the Divide, Jan will present fresh ways of looking at programs, earned income, and donations that will be sustainable for your organization. When presented at last year's Stanford Social Innovation Review conference for nonprofit executives, it was the highest rated session.

Asset Mapping: BMe Network

The increasingly volatile climate concerning race, communities, and America's future makes taking no position highly conspicuous and taking the wrong position extremely costly. Adaptive executive leaders and managers in social innovation, philanthropy, and major associations overcome that immobilizing fear by applying an award-winning cognitive frame that engenders understanding, confidence, and inspired constructive action. It's called "Asset-framing." BMe Network's interactive session will engage participants with knowledge from national and global authorities on cognition, racial narrative, social innovation, and engagement.      

 Keynote: Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter has over 35 years working in the nonprofit sector in technology, training, and capacity and has facilitated trainings for nonprofits all over the world. Named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company and one of the BusinessWeek’s "Voices of Innovation for Social Media," Beth was Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation 2009-2013. She currently serves as adjunct professor at Middlebury where she prepares graduate students for their internships at international nonprofits and in how to use online networking tools to advance their careers.

Breakout Session Highlights

Advocacy

Impact Through Collaboration: Working together is an effective, efficient way to advocate for issues that impact many. In this session, Chicago Literacy Alliance will share specific case studies of their members who have collaborated on advocacy initiatives. Session attendees will strategize ways to utilize their networks and work with others to advocate for their organizations’ causes.

Communications

The Great Disappearing Act: It seems like every day, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram change their algorithms, making it less and less likely that your donors and prospects will see your amazing content. It can be enough to make you want to give up on social media altogether – or never get started in the first place. Swell + Good and Opportunity International team up to discuss a secret solution – a tool that is prioritized by every social media platform and growing by the minute, and the one that is easy for even the smallest nonprofit to manage: Ephemeral content, more commonly known as stories. 

Collective Impact

How to Build a Culture of Collaborative Learning: Benchmark data is not available for many social service organizations, creating a need for nonprofits to organize themselves to collect and share data for learning and improvement. This session, featuring speakers from Christopher House, will provide a “how-to” guide for nonprofits wanting to engage in collaborative data sharing. This session is also useful to funders wanting to standardize data collection from grantees, and/or convene grantees to share data for learning and improvement.

  …and more. There will be over 10 sessions on advocacy, communications, board engagement, collective impact, data, and program evaluation to choose from. 

Join us in BRIDGING THE DIVIDE this October! Register today.