About the Conference.
Up in the Air: Shifting Power, Opening Doors
The Collaborative Conference: where Pennsylvania’s nonprofit professionals go each year to connect, network, learn from each other, learn from experts, and together leverage our collective power to create change – within ourselves, our organizations, our sector, and our communities. For the first time since 2019, we’re excited to take this experience fully off-screen, back at our old haunt in State College. That’s right, this year’s conference will feature two days of in-person fun, learning, connection, and maybe even some shenanigans, at the good ol’ Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center.
With this year’s theme of Up in the Air: Shifting Power, Opening Doors, we are taking some time out of the hustle and bustle of our everyday work to figure out what it will take to leverage the continued uncertainty we are all facing – from hiring challenges and staff burnout to funding insecurity and the upcoming election – to shift power and open new doors. Rather than feel lost and untethered by all the unknowns, floating without purpose, what opportunities might we discover as we lean on each other to find our way forward?
On the first of two days together (Monday, September 30), we’ll focus on the “shifting power” half of the theme.
- Where does power need to shift?
- Where is power already shifting?
- What does this look like in nonprofit governance, advocacy and voter registration support, fundraising and other resource development, our JEDI efforts, leadership and operations, and more?
On the second day (Tuesday, October 1), we’ll focus on opening doors.
- What might shifts in power make possible – in nonprofit governance, fundraising and other resource development, JEDI efforts, leadership and operations, and more?
- What do we need to fuel our own creativity and not burn out but burn brighter?
This is the conversation we invite YOU to bring to life with us at this year’s conference. So bring your thoughts, your voices, your successes, and also your challenges, your pain points, your “what’s keeping you up at night”. Bring your whole selves (COVID pants welcome!), and an open mind, too. While so much remains up in the air, we just might be able to ground ourselves in possibility – together.
Workshops & Cohorts.
The pandemic was like a giant reset button, changing our priorities, outlook, and engagement with each other. Four years later, we are now different people occupying a different world (still wearing our COVID-pants, though, because some wheels just don’t need reinventing). So, what exactly are we resetting to? The “tried and true” simply don’t work anymore. And maybe that’s a good thing! After all, if old ways don’t open new doors, maybe new ways will.
In the spirit of new ways opening new doors, we are trying something a little different with the format of this year’s conference, starting with community-building first and then developing content around those connections (rather than the other way around). We have heard from those coming to post-pandemic events the value of face time with peers as its own learning outcome, in addition to the value of the takeaways we get from speakers. Rather than spend most of our two days together in workshops, this year’s agenda includes ample time for us to be together, in conversation about the things that are top of mind for us, right here and right now.
We are leaning into concepts gleaned from:
- The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker (a keynote speaker at our 2020 conference!). Priya planted the seed of what it means to create meaningful gatherings, including but not limited to the idea of “generous exclusion” – meaning that a gathering intentionally designed around a purpose could and maybe should exclude those who may not fit the purpose for which that gathering was designed. By doing so, those invited and engaged with intent may find the best value.
- Impact Networks: Create Connections, Spark Collaboration, and Catalyze Systemic Change, by David Ehrlichman. Specifically, we want to create learning or knowledge networks where information is exchanged, innovation is sparked, coordination is increased, and members are better able to adapt knowledge to their local challenges, and promising practices are spread, resources are more easily distributed where they are needed most, messaging comes into greater alignment, and the actions of those involved begin to reinforce each other.
The topic areas within which one workshop and one facilitated conversation will fall each day are:
- Governance
- Leadership
- Operations
- Fundraising/Resource Development
- JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion)
- Choose your own adventure (name your topic!)
Our Partners.
The 2024 Collaborative Conference is brought to you in partnership by Alliance for Nonprofit Resources (ANR), the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership (GPNP), the PA Association of Nonprofit Organizations (PANO), and the Department of Public Administration at Villanova University.
The Wisdom is in the Room.
We firmly believe the wisdom is already in the room – we are all experts in our own right, figuring out what works best for our organizations, our communities, and beyond. Sometimes we get stuck, bogged down even, by all that’s up in the air, and could use a sounding board, a fresh perspective, an example of a promising new practice. That’s where the wisdom in the room can help! Come draw out the wisdom in the room with us, and be part of the wisdom in the room for someone else.