About the Conference.
Rooting Deeper, Rising Together.
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. Once again, this year’s event will feature two days of in-person fun, learning, connection, and maybe even some shenanigans, at the good ol’ Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center.
The work of our 2025 Collaborative Conference, Meeting the Moment – Rooted Together, was finding each other beneath the surface. With our 2026 theme of Rooting Deeper, Rising Together, we’ll begin the work of doing more together, turning connection into action. We will go deeper into that work and rise into our strength together, claiming a more visible role in our communities, in policy, and in shaping what comes next. We rise together because our roots run deep and stay connected. The conference is where we’ll practice what rising together actually looks like. We hope this gathering:
- Energizes a statewide movement built on nonprofit solidarity and strategic advocacy.
- Offers opportunities for leaders to experience inspiration, feel less isolated, and engage in meaningful collaboration.
- Creates space for joy, fun, and real talk – because movement-building requires relationship-building, rest, and connection.
Learning Sessions. Working Sessions. Mini-Clinics.
We’ve spent the last year finding each other beneath the surface. Rooting deeper is how the sector gathers strength. Rising together is what we do with the strength we’ve gathered. Rising looks different at every scale, and all of it counts. Growth can mean influence, depth, reach, voice, or steadiness. No one rises alone, and no one has to.
This is the space to look up, get strategic, and decide what you want to do next, with a whole sector standing alongside you. As such, sessions are designed to support not just learning but action, both in their content and in how they’re delivered. Each session will be supported by a synthesizer. Some definitions:
- Learning Sessions have been designed to provide some context around the topic chosen – with questions and prompts to generate stories and ideas from those on the ground doing the work.
- Working Sessions have been designed not just to inform, but to gather attendees around a common challenge and offer time, tools, and frameworks to move toward solutions together in real time. This could look like real-world simulations, design-thinking activities, “impact labs”, and more.
- Mini-Clinics will be offered the afternoon of September 24 only. These 20-minute sessions will help us “tend to our roots” by focusing on one specific element of workplace culture – things like role clarity, staff capacity, board engagement, and more.
- Synthesizers will help capture what’s shared in each session, synthesize insights, and connect dots for us all.
All Learning and Working Sessions will be rooted in the following tracks:
- Collaboration & Partnership
- Evolving Technology
- Fundraising & Financial Sustainability
- Nimble Communications
- Leadership & Governance
- Strategy, Planning, & Organizational Resilience
Our Partners.
The 2026 Collaborative Conference is brought to you in partnership by 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 and could use a sounding board, a fresh perspective, an example of a promising new practice to help us root deeper into our individual and collective power to create real change. 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.