How do we fix the most critical issues in our community with grants of $5,000, $50,000, or even $500,000? No matter how hard we try, a few grants won't eradicate poverty. So, what do we do? Funder collaboratives--donors pooling dollars to make grants together--harness the potential for collective action to make meaningful change and amplify its impact on the ground. This session is a primer and how-to guide for starting and running place-based funder collaboratives and introduces a framework for collective decision-making across foundations, corporations, community foundations, and donor advisors. 

Session Designer: Tim Bresnahan, Senior Director of Gift Planning, The Chicago Community Trust, and Board Member, AdNet

From the halls of Congress to the corridors of state capitols, policymakers are considering bills and regulations impacting the charitable sector. Do you know what is happening in your state? This session will feature a discussion on some of the latest developments unfolding in the states and at the federal level. 

Session Designer: Jenn Holcomb, Director, Government Affairs, Council on Foundations

Join this session to hear from women of color leaders at the helm of women's funds about their strategies for engaging donors and communities in advocacy, policy, and systems change efforts. Today, more than 50% of place-based women’s funds in the U.S. are led by women of color. They bring candor, courage, and lived experiences that invigorate the sector. One way is through unapologetic and undeterred engagement in public policy. From leading intersectional coalitions to narrative change and civic engagement, women’s funds routinely tackle today’s most pressing gender, racial, and economic issues. They have successfully effected systems change by codifying access to abortion care, closing wage gaps, combatting period poverty, and instituting paid family and medical leave. 

Session Designer: Lauren Y. Casteel, President & CEO, The Women’s Foundation of Colorado

The Bay Area Equity Analysis is a data and policy tool that places the power of reliable, accurate, and deeply disaggregated data into the hands of movement leaders and policy makers to win on equity and achieve transformative policy changes that improves lives in the Bay Area. Using this tool as a model, learn more about the role of disaggregated data in shaping strategy and policy campaigns, agree on equity indicators, and the impact of disaggregated data. 

Session Designer: Sengsouvanh Leshnick, Director of Strategic Evaluation and Learning, The San Francisco Foundation

Hear about efforts in Colorado, which has been internationally recognized for rallying foundations, higher education, civic leaders, businesses and individuals to address the crisis of declining local journalism and its impact on communities. Philanthropy can plan a pivotal role in catalyzing and supporting new approaches to local news, that combat the fragmentation of local journalism, the deluge of disinformation, polarization in our civic dialogue, and widespread mistrust by taking a collaborative ecosystem approach to addressing challenges in local media and promoting more equitable civic engagement and civic dialogue.

Session Designer: Melissa Davis, Vice President, Strategic Communications and Informed Communities, Gates Family Foundation

This session is reserved for Current CEOs and Executive Directors. 

In a labor landscape where transition seems the norm rather than the exception, foundation CEOs are expected to plan ahead to leave their institutions better off than they found them. The session will explore the adaptive qualities and skills that CEOs need to shore up organizational resilience and strength; navigate generational dynamics; develop internal leader pipelines; plan for succession; and create more equitable, diverse, and inclusive organizations primed for the future.

Session Designer: Daniel Lee, Executive in Residence, Council on Foundations

Informed by the pillars that made Black Wall Street successful, Black Wall Street Forward convened and catalyzed Black business owners, local leaders, and entrepreneur champions in five North Carolina communities. Black Wall Street Forward models how funders and national organizations can partner to create space for local communities to envision and chart their own path toward an equitable economy. Learn from this model how centering Black leadership and networks can catalyze narrative change to create more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems. 

Session Designer: Fay Horwitt, Presdient and CEO, Forward Cities

Acclimate Colorado, a partnership between philanthropy and nonprofits in Colorado, resulted in a policy agenda and blueprint for enacting state and local change. Learn how this partnership produced momentum around climate change adaptation, investment, planning, and policy change to improve community resilience. This session will highlight building public awareness, aligning organizational strategies, and seeding support to key organizations to take advantage windows of (policy) opportunity like federal investments, elections, and legislative sessions. 

Session Designer: Dace West, Chief Impact Officer, The Denver Foundation

What if disaster philanthropy led to equitable recovery, long-term power building, and economic justice? It’s possible. At this session, you’ll meet frontline leaders and be inspired to balance proactive and responsive grantmaking at your institution. Born out of our Wildfire Relief Fund, you’ll learn about LCF’s powerful Just Recovery model that invests boldly in grassroots leadership and power building, while strengthening response to community crises. LCF’s Just Recovery coalition has flourished and secured real wins for working-class Latino and Indigenous communities. Today, it is advancing an economic renaissance for the region. We can do philanthropy differently. 

Session Designer: Samantha Sandoval, Grantmaking & Special Projects Director, Latino Community Foundation

Our second day opens with a plenary and breakfast session to answer the question: How do we build places where everyone thrives? We may not have all the answers, but by tapping into our collective wisdom and imagination, we can transform the structures and systems that no longer serve us into vibrant and inclusive communities. Join us for an inspiring session that weaves together stories of communities dreaming together and building on the lessons of the past to create a shared future where we all belong.

Government policies and programs affect almost every aspect of our lives, from housing, healthcare and the environment to education, transportation, and safety. Across the country, foundations are using their voices and resources to advocate for communities that benefit us all. Join CFLeads and the Council on Foundations, as we hear from leaders about how they got started and why advocacy work is a vital tool for place-based foundations. Afterward, connect with peers to tackle the challenges you are facing and identify potential next steps.

Session Designer: Jenn Holcomb, Director, Government Affairs, Council on Foundations

In a city of 100,000, challenged by persistent high poverty, a coalition of private sector and nonprofit leadership revitalized a downtown area by investing $110 million, creating 142 market rate apartments, eliminating a food desert, and strengthening adjacent neighborhoods. This interactive case-study session will highlight community leadership strategy, coalition building, impact investing, and neighborhood development strategy.

Session Designer: Michael Batchelor, President, Pennsylvania Community Foundation Association

Over the last two decades, many community foundations have invested in growing donor advised fund assets under management and aligned services. Was that DAF growth at the expense of other asset development, such as endowment building? In this session, we will hear from two community foundation development experts who will discuss successful approaches to endowment building, including how to convert DAF holders to legacy donors, marketing and communications, planned giving and professional advisor engagement. This session will serve any community foundation development and donor services professional who is looking to start or re-ignite an endowment building effort.

Session Designer: Tim Bresnahan, Senior Director of Gift Planning, The Chicago Community Trust, and Board Member, AdNet

Coal plant and mine closures are causing economic turmoil in rural areas from the Four Corners of the American Southwest to deep in Appalachia as communities transition to cleaner energy solutions. Although new federal dollars are available, place-based funders know that rural nonprofits can't access funds for local economic diversification, workforce development, or infrastructure expansion without strategic, targeted investments by philanthropy. Participants will learn about the real-time barriers that communities face when accessing federal funds, the strategies that funders can employ to overcome them, and the state of the national effort to help communities on the frontlines of the energy transition to revitalize and transform their economies. 

Session Designer: Heidi Binko, Executive Director, Just Transition Fund

When it comes to making equitable, lasting changes at scale, early-in, subsidy, and risk-adjusted capital can be the key to long term success. Join this lively and interactive session and use real-time examples to learn how foundations, CDFls, and other field builders have engaged with entrepreneurs, community-led development efforts, BIPOC anchor institutions such as churches and HBCUs, and local government. Using catalytic capital and impact investing is often the key to unleashing additional investment that fits the needs of communities. Participants can workshop solutions and share resources from their own communities. 

Session Designer: Melanie Audette, Senior Vice President, Mission Investors Exchange

Philanthropy has a public relations challenge. From accusations of navel gazing and money hoarding, to a limiting narrative about who can be a philanthropist and what change looks like for the people we’re trying to help. Community foundations are well-positioned to shift this narrative because of their proximate roles to the people and communities they support. Join us to workshop your community’s story which can shape the future of philanthropy’s story. 

Session Designer: Nicole Bronzan, Vice President, Communications and Content, Council on Foundations