2008 National Conference Pre-Sessions

1. Introduction to GEO’s Change Agenda.  New and old GEO members alike will benefit from this session that will share key lessons learned about philanthropic effectiveness over the 10 years since GEO’s founding, and how this learning has formed GEO’s agenda for change. The session will also cover four themes that are core to GEO’s work and central to the conference program: leadership development, organizational learning, supporting nonprofit capital structures, and inclusiveness.
   Session Designer: Gregg Behr, Grable Foundation
   Speakers: Gregg Behr; Beth Bruner, Bruner Foundation; Janine Lee, Southern Partners Fund
   

2. Role Dilemmas Explored: Generating New Insights into Difficult Conversations. Introducing new ideas or promoting changes in an organization, a field, or a community is exciting and important work for grantmakers. However, it doesn't always go as well as we'd like. As one grantmaker remarked to GrantCraft, it is the soft things that are hard to learn. In this session participants will look at difficult conversations they've had through several lenses to gain insights into what happened and learn new frameworks that can make the next conversation easier. The ideas behind this strategy come from work with hundreds of grantmakers that led to the Personal Strategy guide by GrantCraft. Pre-registration is required, and participants will be given a 20-minute assignment to complete before the session.
   Session Designer: Jan Jaffe, GrantCraft
   Speaker: Jan Jaffe. Click here to download the related Powerpoint presentation file.
    
   
   
3. Share and Learn: A Participatory Workshop on Learning Practices in the Philanthropic Sector. Whether you are experienced in knowledge management and evaluation or new to the topic of learning for results, come to this interactive session to share your stories, learn with your peers, and envision successful learning practices for grantmakers. Facilitators will use participants' experience and questions as a starting point, derive insights from the collective wisdom gathered in the room, and give each participant the opportunity to create an action plan for their own learning initiatives. Pre-registration is required, and participants will be asked to fill out a short survey in preparation for this session.
   Session Designer: Roberto Cremonini, the Barr Foundation
   Speakers: Roberto Cremonini; Jillaine Smith, GEO. To download a PDF of the session handouts click here.
   
   
4. Coaching for Change: Enhancing Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in the Nonprofit Sector. The Coaching and Philanthropy project was created to assess and advance the application of coaching as a strategy for building effective nonprofit organizations. Now in its second phase, the project seeks to help nonprofits and foundations understand how coaching fits as a strategy for leadership development and organizational effectiveness. This session will present recently collected research on the use and effectiveness of nonprofit coaching and discuss how grantmakers might engage in coaching for their own work with grantees. Research results will provide the basis for this interactive discussion.
   Session Designer: Michelle Gislason, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services
   Speakers: Michelle Gislason; Kim Ammann Howard, BTW informing change; Virginia Kellogg, Leadership That Works. To download a PDF of the session handouts click here.
   
   
   
   
5. A Case Study Seminar on Effective Grantmaking Practices: Social Change, Funder Collaboration and the "Achieving the Dream" Partnership. Just three years after it began, Achieving the Dream--a nationwide initiative supported by many grantmakers--far surpassed its partners' goals to begin improving the success rates of minority and low-income students in community colleges. But it also struggled with critical questions about next steps. Part of Grantmakers for Educations' case study series on effective grantmaking, this seminar will use the Achieving the Dream initiative to help grantmakers of all sizes and issue interests reflect on the tough work of managing social-change initiatives, ways of involving and getting buy-in from partners with different missions and agendas, and how national and local funders work together. Modeled on a traditional case-study seminar, this program will not have any formal presentations but will instead emphasize active discussion and debate among participants about the grantmaking decisions outlined in the case study. Pre-registration is required, and participants will be expected to read a case study in advance.
   Session Designer: William Porter, Grantmakers for Education
   Case study leader: James Honan, Harvard Graduate School of Education
   Respondent: Leah Meyer Austin, Lumina Foundation for Education
   

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