Dreaming Out Loud: The Democracy We Build Next

Date: Thursday, September 24, 11:15-11:55 am

Featuring as Panelists: Diane Yentel, President & CEO, National Council of Nonprofits | Maddy Gitomer, Senior Counsel, Democracy Forward | Anne Gingerich, MSW, Executive Director, PANO

This year, Pennsylvania nonprofits earned a reputation as an unquiet force. Our voices carry in Harrisburg and in Washington. The question we’re opening this conference with is: What do we do as that force?

PANO’s Anne Gingerich sits down with Diane Yentel of the National Council of Nonprofits and Maddy Gitomer of Democracy Forward for a conversation about the next ten years rather than the next twelve months. Each of them sees the sector’s future from a different vantage point: national infrastructure, civic and legal protection, and the Pennsylvania organizations doing the work on the ground. Anne brings what we all heard from hundreds of Pennsylvania nonprofits through Standards For All, where the sector plainly named its own civic role.

The starting question is a dream rather than a budget line. If we succeed, what will a Pennsylvania community hold in 2035, and what will it feel like to live there? Answers to these questions will produce a list of conditions, and that list is where real implementation begins.

Nonprofits have always been civic actors as well as service providers. Living fully into that may change how we’re built. Come ready to think beyond the sector that currently exists.

Growth is Not Accidental: Building the Conditions for Collective Thriving

Date: September 25, 1:20-1:55 pm

Presented by: Dr. Hasshan Batts, Vice President and COO of the Preventive Measures Foundation, Founder of the Prison Survivors Network, and internationally-recognized community epidemiologist & tri-sector systems leader.

Growth is not accidental. It happens when relationships are deepened and the conditions for trust, belonging, opportunity, and shared power are intentionally created.

In this future-focused closing keynote, Dr. Hasshan Batts will help participants synthesize the conference’s collective learning and turn connection into action. Drawing upon community epidemiology, Radical Welcome, lived experience, and cross-sector systems change, he will explore how relationships and community wisdom can become essential infrastructure for stronger organizations and more thriving communities.

Together, we will consider how nonprofits can move beyond responding to immediate needs and begin transforming the conditions that produce inequity, disconnection, and diminished possibility. Participants will leave challenged to identify what must be rooted more deeply, what must change, and what we can build together as a connected and increasingly visible force shaping what comes next. All attendees will receive a copy of Dr. Batts’ book, Beyond the Nightmare: Daily Truths for Healing, Wellness & Radical Welcome.