The human services sector is facing an existential crisis, with devastating funding cuts, regulatory uncertainty, and rising operational barriers threatening essential programs. Millions of individuals and families rely on these services, yet recent policy shifts have placed them at risk. This public policy briefing will dig into the most pressing challenges, their real-world impacts, and the urgent actions needed to protect the sector. Join Social Current’s Senior Director of Government Affairs Blair Abelle-Kiser, Ph.D., for a crucial discussion on navigating this turbulent landscape and mobilizing for change.
Learning Objectives
- The latest on federal policy changes
- Advocacy strategies and tips
- How to join Social Current’s collective mobilization efforts
Presenters
Blair Abelle-Kiser
Senior Director of Government Affairs
Social Current
Related COA Accreditation standards: Governance (GOV)
An effective board is a cornerstone of organizational success. By focusing on role clarity, strategic planning, and fostering a collaborative culture, leaders can unlock the full potential of their boards to drive impactful results.
This session will equip participants with the knowledge and tools needed to achieve these goals and elevate their governance practices. This session aims to provide board members, executives, and organizational leaders with actionable learnings and strategies to enhance board effectiveness.
Key themes include:
Role Clarity:
- Understand the distinct responsibilities of the CEO, executive team, and board members
- Highlight the importance of the board’s focus on strategic direction
- Explore best practices for defining roles to avoid overlaps and ensure accountability
Strategic Direction:
- Techniques for establishing shared ownership of organizational goals
- Methods to practice informed decision making
- Steps to develop a board work plan
Board Team and Culture:
- Recruitment strategies to attract diverse and qualified board members
- Approaches for creating an inclusive culture
- Continuous development methods, including mentoring, orientation, and succession planning
Effective Meeting Practices:
- Optimize board meetings using consent agendas and prioritizing strategic discussions
- Facilitation techniques to encourage productive discussions and achieve meeting objectives
- Post-meeting follow-up practices to ensure accountability and progress
Committees and Crisis Management:
- How to drive purpose of board committees to focus on strategic priorities
- How to develop a robust crisis communication plan to safeguard organizational reputation and trust
- How to align board activities with organizational goals, optimize decision making, and create high-performing governance teams
Learning Objectives
- Key opportunities to improve board operations, shown through real examples
- How to develop actionable plans for optimizing a board’s work
- How to address common challenges (lack of engagement, unclear roles, or inefficient meetings)
Presenter
Christina Gullo
Owner/Partner
True North Executive Solutions
The pandemic initiated a reckoning in philanthropy, revealing the urgency for more equitable nonprofit investment strategies. Trust-based philanthropy, an approach prioritizing trust, collaboration, and minimal restrictions, took off as a buzzword in 2020, but has retained staying power as a new paradigm to build organizational capacity and shift the power dynamics between grantmakers and grant recipients.
For some funders, this was straightforward: restricted funds were converted to general operating support, lengthy applications were streamlined into accessible forms with brief reports, and check-in calls or visits replaced traditional interim submissions. Others have taken smaller but significant steps, like eliminating duplicative information or accepting another funder’s materials. Similarly, many nonprofits began advocating for better approaches to grantmaking that build relationships and support communities with more meaningful methods.
This session’s focus will be on practical and purposeful steps that take your organization closer to a trust-based philanthropy paradigm. Whether you are a grantmaker or grant recipient, we’ll guide you on effective strategies that center trust, diminish unequal power dynamics, and empower nonprofits, grantmakers, and any changemakers to lead with trust and the impact of their work. Learn how to build a trust-based philanthropy culture in your work, and shift from a donor-centric model to practices centered on your mission and community.
Learning Objectives
- After attending this session, audience members will have a practical understanding of trust-based philanthropy tactics and how to deploy TBP in a nonprofit-focused manner that achieves measurable impact.
Presenter
Sarah Angello
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Resilia
Understanding overhead is vital to strong financial management for every organization. In this session, presenters from Your Part-Time Controller LLC will debunk the overhead myth and discuss an appropriate administrative ratio for nonprofit organizations. To help participants develop more effective financial analysis, presenters will demonstrate the importance of reasonable and consistent cost allocations, as well as how revenue diversification can play a part in the overhead process.
Learning Objectives
- Debunking the overhead myth
- The importance of reasonable and consistent cost allocations for nonprofits
- Ways that revenue diversification can help supplement overhead costs for nonprofits
Presenters
Sandra Magri
Manager
Your Part-Time Controller LLC
Gregg Indictor
Director
Your Part-Time Controller LLC
This session will demonstrate how project management practices, principles, and tools can be adapted to organizations of various sizes, using the case study of Devereux’s successful project management office. A well-structured project management function can streamline processes, improve project delivery, and ensure that projects align with the organization’s strategic goals. Whether you have many or few resources at your disposal, scalable project management techniques can help you put your strategy into action.
Learning Objectives
• How to translate strategies into tactical success using project management, no matter the organization’s size or resource availability
• Train and develop new project managers who are skilled in the art and the science of managing projects
• Develop and refine traditional and agile project management approaches to support an organization-wide project management function
• Consider how the project management office will strategically fit within the organization and act as a thought partner to senior leadership
Presenters
Sarah Boone
National Project Manager
Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health
Would you like to whistle all the way home from work? Do you wish you could fully leverage the power of your organization’s culture? Would you like to have the opportunity to learn about and implement strategies that ensure your services and organization’s success?
If the answer to these questions is a resounding YES, join Dr. Dann for a high-energy, high-impact training on the power of positive organizational culture.
We all operate within an organizational culture. Our social nature and desire to belong shapes membership behavior, and the culture that grows because of this phenomenon can become the defining measure for organizational success or failure. This interactive and engaging session will open the window to understanding your organization’s normative culture, as well as strategies to ensure the presence of positive organizational culture. A rising tide lifts all boats! A positive organizational culture makes the seemingly impossible possible!
Through this session, participants will come away with concrete strategies to ensure that their organization’s culture becomes a powerful source for ensuring success. Participants will explore proven strategies to ensure the presence of a mission-focused, positive organizational culture. Explore the power of WE, learn the connection between your program/organization’s culture and employee resilience and retention. Develop strategies to ensure positive norms that support diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Learn about the connection between your organization’s systems and a positive organizational culture. Develop strategies to leverage communication and feedback practices.
And don’t forget – during this session we’ll have some fun!
Learning Objectives
- The elements of a positive organizational culture
- How to analyze your organizational culture for opportunities to positively impact practice
- Identify three to five strategies that can be applied to the work environment to leverage organizational culture in pursuit of mission focused outcomes
- Specific culture-building strategies
Presenters
Paul Dann
President and CEO of North American Family Institute
North American Family Institute
This session will begin with an overview of key elements of inclusive data-informed decision making and move quickly into an assessment of participants’ own organizational practice.
Then participants will dive into the three stages within a data cycle and discuss how to make your practice more inclusive within each stage. The presenter will cover common pitfalls, opportunities, and examples to bring those opportunities to life. Participants will gain tools and frameworks to listen and engage individuals, families, and communities. They’ll leave ready create an action plan, turning the learnings and ideas shared from this session into next steps.
Learning Objectives
- What an inclusive data practice looks like and how to assess current practices
- Strategies to include more diverse voices in your data practice and common pitfalls
- How to build an action plan prioritizes areas to embed more inclusive practices.
Presenters
Cindy Eby
Founder + CEO
ResultsLab
This session will focus on both transactional and transformative strategies that create the conditions for an organizational culture that fosters authentic healing, resilience, and equity. It will directly address a critical need in community-based and human services organizations: To understand and mitigate the effects of stress, adversity, and trauma, especially as they relate to historically oppressed and marginalized groups.
Presenters will delve into innovative strategies based on the intersection of trauma-responsive practices and antiracism, equity, and belonging. This session is a blueprint for actionable change and will discuss the practical application of concepts at various levels within the organization. Participants will be guided through various ways of implementing and sustaining a culture that is both trauma-responsive and equity-focused. The goal of this approach is not only to enhance staff well-being and retention but also to significantly improve the experience and long-term engagement of employees and service recipients.
Learning Objectives
- Insights into the intersection of trauma-responsive practices and antiracism
- Practical tools and strategies for embedding these practices into organizational culture
- Interactive discussions to explore challenges and collaborative solutions
- Techniques for ensuring sustainable, long-term organizational culture transformation
Presenters
Kesha Carter
Chief Diversity Officer
CCSI
Elizabeth Meeker
Vice President, Consulting & Technical Assistance
CCSI