Whether you call it a collaboration, a coalition, or collective impact, this session with SPARK 2025 keynote Suzanne Smith, will share tips and templates to ensure your collaborative work is productive. We’ll also discuss how to best structure meetings, build trust using charters and ground rules, and measure your existing collaborative efforts. We’ll also discuss how to take your collaborative efforts to the next level through honest conversations on building trust, creating meaningful value for all partners, and managing conflict and power structures. Make your collaboration even more successful with this action-packed session.

Takeaways

Presenter

Suzanne Smith
Founder and CEO
Social Impact Architects

This session is reserved for only the CEO or executive director of human and social services organizations.

Generative AI is no longer theoretical—it’s a strategic reality with transformative potential for mission-driven organizations. In this forward-looking discussion, CEOs will learn from Brightpoint, a Social Current network organization, and Truth Collective, which has supported marketing and branding initiatives for Social Current and Brightpoint. They will share how their organizations are applying generative AI to enhance creativity, accelerate decision making, and increase impact. Designed to spark reflection and action, this conversation will help nonprofit CEOs explore how AI could align with their values, amplify their mission, and future-proof their organizations.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Bob Bailey
Founder/Managing Partner
Truth Collective

Mike Shaver
Chief Executive Officer
Brightpoint

Moderator

Jody Levison-Johnson
President & CEO
Social Current

Related COA Accreditation standards:

Today, human and social services leaders find themselves in unprecedented times. Workforce challenges, the never-ending increased demands, and shrinking resources require that nonprofit leaders and managers pursue new and innovative strategies for ensuring programmatic and organizational success. Join Dr Dann in this high energy and highly participatory workshop to explore proven strategies to leverage the efficacy of your team and organization. Drawing from the research on trauma-informed practice, the Resiliency Factor provides participants with concrete strategies to reduce turnover, heighten employee engagement, and help the team bounce back from extremely difficult situations. Most importantly, the Resiliency Factor provides a path to ensure the successful pursuit of your organization’s important mission.

During this interactive workshop, participants will have the opportunity to complete an assessment tool that will help them understand the level of resiliency as well as areas for growth that exist within their team and organization. The assessment tool also serves as a springboard for exploring strategies to leverage employees’ developmental assets and their ability to be resilient.

Participants at all levels will have the ability to apply effective strategies at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Supervisors, for example, will benefit from understanding strategies to become resilient, while managers and leaders will have the capacity to apply the conceptual frame and practical strategies from a team and or systems-based perspective.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Paul Dann
President and CEO of North American Family Institute
North American Family Institute

In an era where philanthropy is evolving rapidly, executives must equip themselves with the knowledge and tools necessary to navigate the complexities of engaging high net-worth individuals (HNWIs), wealth managers/family offices, family foundations, and impact investors. This workshop aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the modern fundraising landscape, emphasizing innovative strategies that resonate with today’s philanthropists. It will discuss:

  1. Understanding the Philanthropic Landscape
    • Philanthropy in 2025: Learn about the current state of the philanthropic sector and trends in philanthropy
    • Motivations of HNWIs: Gain insights into what drives wealthy individuals to give, including personal values, family legacy, and the desire to create social change
    • Family Foundations: Explore the dynamics of family foundations, including governance structures, decision-making processes, and the importance of aligning philanthropic efforts with family values
    • Incentives: How tax laws are changing impact investing and other forms of giving
  2. Building Effective Relationships:
    • Personalized Engagement: Learn strategies for crafting tailored communication plans with compelling narratives that align with HNWIs’ philanthropic goals and interests
    • Long-Term Relationship Cultivation: Discuss techniques for nurturing relationships over time, focusing on ongoing engagement rather than one-time donations
  3. Impact Investing:
    • Understanding Impact Investing: Defining impact investing and its relevance in today’s fundraising efforts; how these investments prioritize social or environmental impact alongside financial returns
    • Strategies for Engaging Impact Investors: Identify ways to present opportunities to potential impact investors, including project alignment with their values and clearly defined metrics for success
  4. Other Innovative Fundraising Strategies:
    • Leveraging Technology: Explore the role of digital tools and platforms in reaching HNWIs and family foundations; discuss how data can inform fundraising strategies and enhance donor engagement
    • Creating Unique Experiences: Develop ideas for experiential fundraising initiatives that connect donors with the mission in meaningful ways, including policy events, site visits to projects, or tailored volunteer opportunities

In this interactive workshop, participants will analyze successful fundraising campaigns that have effectively engaged HNWIs and family foundations. Discussions will highlight best practices and lessons learned. Participants also will have the opportunity to develop a message for a campaign to practice the skills.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Sarah Beth Lardie
Chief Development Officer
Social Current

As changemakers, many of us struggle with the most complex issues of our time. Systems of oppression are not only entrenched but interconnected. And even as we work to solve problems on the daily, a paralyzing thought can creep in … are we even solving the right problem?

Greater Good Studio has been working with social sector clients to reframe problems for the past 13 years. We have found that the original problem statement often has one or more of the following issues:

Whether you’re a leader planning organizational strategy, or a mentor looking to better support your mentees, this workshop will give you concrete tools for tackling challenges in a more strategic, action-oriented, and equitable way. You will learn and practice methods for:

These methods build on concepts, such as appreciative inquiry, positive deviance, and human-centered design, which Greater Good Studio has practiced with hundreds of clients across the social and public sectors.

Each participant will start with a challenge or issue that has them stuck. They will end the workshop with an ambitious-yet-achievable “positive goal,” as well as a plan to achieve that goal.

Organizational teams are encouraged to participate, as this experience is ideal for building alignment within groups.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Sara Cantor
Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director
Greater Good Studio

George Aye
Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director
Greater Good Studio

The financial challenges of being a human service nonprofit in the U.S. come as no surprise to leaders in the field. (See Social Current’s 2018 report, A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America, for a refresher of the harrowing statistics.) Human service organizations scrape by on government contracts that, in many cases, fail to cover the direct cost of delivering the service, let alone the indirect costs required to run a high-quality organization. Staff at all levels are underpaid, which leads to burnout and turnover, and, in the, end the organization’s beneficiaries suffer.

This situation is not new. We at Bridgespan have seen it in hundreds of human service organizations that we have advised over the last 25 years. And it surely started long before that. So why does this persist? Why don’t human service organizations walk away from bad contracts? Our experience suggests that the biggest reason is a good one—the desire to help people in need. There is also a bit of inertia that factors in, as well as the desire to not lay off staff and not see the budget decrease, but the biggest reason is mission.

However, in recent years we have seen an increasing number of nonprofit leaders question whether continuing to execute government contracts is really the best way to advance their mission. These leaders have found it helpful to think about two different ways of achieving their mission—”serving” and “solving.” “Serving” refers to providing direct service, typically funded by government contracts, following program models prescribed by those contracts, and doing so within the financial resources those contracts provide. “Solving” refers to trying to change the status quo approaches to human services, often through innovation and advocating for systems change. While it might be tempting to say you want your organization to focus on “solving,” it is not an easy shift to make. There are valid reasons to continue “serving,” and ways to optimize it for impact and sustainability.

This session will explain the differences between “serving” and “solving” and share what it takes to do each well. Participants will leave with a framework they can apply to their organization, have a chance to reflect on their ambitions for their organization, and learn from examples of other organizations that have used this framework. In this interactive session, we hope to share what we have learned from our work and gather your feedback and learn from your experience navigating this dilemma.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Alex Neuhoff
Partner
The Bridgespan Group

Rohit Menezes
Partner
The Bridgespan Group

In this practical, hands-on workshop, presenters from Congreso de Latinos Unidos, a multiservice organization in Philadelphia, will share their homegrown Human-Centered Design Toolkit and information about innovative design tools that participants can take back to their organizations for thoughtful service design and delivery.

Congreso has been using human-centered design (HCD) as an innovative framework for its service design process, reimagining human services for its largely Latino population. Specializing in “last mile innovation,” Congreso uses its design toolkit to empower staff at the end-user client level to redesign their programs to generate data-rich insights, leading to improved experience and outcomes for participants. Staff and leaders are empowered to thoughtfully advocate for their teams and communities.

In building the design toolkit, Congreso tested more than 75 HCD tools and methods used throughout the private sector to determine which techniques translate and have the greatest impact in the social services field. In doing so, Congreso has learned a great deal about how to bring practical design and social innovation techniques into program teams, providing professional development opportunities for staff via “design labs” and building the organization’s culture and acumen around using design for increased impact and advocacy.

In this session, participants will learn about Congreso’s human-centered design journey, see the design toolkit firsthand and participate in mini design labs to gain hands-on experience of putting design practices into action.

Congreso will walk participants through each tool in the design toolkit, provide tips for use, and give everyone a chance to experience the tools in action. Presenters will guide participants in applying the tools to real-life design challenges in their programs so that they gain experience in using HCD to rethink challenges and explore new ideas.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Brendan Conlin
Chief Program Officer
Congreso de Latinos Unidos

Jamie Hughes
Vice President of Programmatic Development
Congreso de Latinos Unidos

This session is reserved for only the CEO or executive director of human and social services organizations.

Data shows there are over 100,000 behavioral health provider organizations, with less than 20% connected to any state or national provider association. In an evolving landscape where behavioral health nonprofits face increasing challenges, mergers and acquisitions are emerging as a strategic pathway to protect Medicaid dollars and ensure sustainability and quality service delivery.

This session, led by the CEO of Consulting for Human Services, a specialist behavioral health consulting firm, aims to reframe the narrative around mergers and acquisitions, moving beyond the traditional perceptions of loss and toward a vision of growth and opportunity. The session will guide participants through the complexities of identifying potential mergers that align with their mission, recognizing bad actors that could derail the process, and the critical role of board alignment in navigating these waters successfully. This presentation will dissect real-world examples, provide actionable insights, and explore the strategic considerations necessary to make informed decisions that secure the future of nonprofit provider organizations.

Learning Objectives

Presenter

Stacy DiStefano
CEO
Consulting For Human Services, Inc (CFHS)

Related COA Accreditation standards: Governance (GOV)

The diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) landscape has shifted dramatically, leaving organizations and leaders grappling with uncertainty. Rollbacks, resistance, and new federal mandates have challenged traditional approaches, creating a sense of urgency to redefine how inclusion and equity manifest in the workplace. Despite the challenges, one thing remains clear—fostering trust, collaboration, and accountability is critical for thriving workplaces. This workshop is designed for leaders, practitioners, and advocates who are looking to navigate this new era of inclusion with purpose and precision. It will provide a roadmap for moving beyond the limitations of traditional DEI frameworks into Human-Inclusive EQ (HI-EQ), a practical, human-centric approach that aligns inclusion efforts with compliance to create measurable, lasting impact.

Participants will gain actionable insights into:

This session isn’t about abandoning DEI; it’s about evolving it into something purposeful, compliant, and effective. You’ll leave equipped with tools like the Lever Mapping Worksheet and Metrics for Success Guide to immediately apply in your organization, ensuring your efforts drive both cultural and business outcomes.

Through an interactive format, we’ll explore how to navigate resistance, foster alignment across differing perspectives, and create inclusion strategies that work for everyone. Participants will also engage in hands-on exercises to personalize the concepts ensure they leave with a clear action plan tailored to their unique challenges.

As leaders and decision-makers, participants will leave with:

This workshop will empower participants to lead the next evolution of inclusion work, ensuring their organizations remain resilient, effective, and aligned with the broader goal of social impact. Whether you’re a seasoned DEI leader or new to navigating inclusion challenges, this session will offer fresh perspectives and actionable solutions for charting the path forward.

Join us to explore how inclusion can thrive in a post-DEI world where purpose, compliance, and meaningful action converge. Together, we’ll define what purposeful work looks like and build a future where everyone belongs.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Kelly Blackmon
Founder/Consultant
B.E. Consulting

Related COA Accreditation standards:

Electronic health records systems (EHRs) are the essential systems/tools for health and human services organizations seeking to ensure regulatory compliance, improve operational efficiencies, and transform into fully data-driven organizations. Effective data governance and organizational change management are critical for the long-term success and maintenance of your EHR system. These processes ensure data integrity, streamline system changes, and enhance overall business and health outcomes.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Tina Kirkpatrick
Senior Director of EHR Strategy and Customer Success
EHR Edge

Theresa Yera
Senior Director of EHR Strategy and Customer Success
EHR Edge