Join us as we open the Summit, reaffirming our purpose over the next few days together. Then join Emmy-nominated storyteller and thought leader Baratunde Thurston for an inspiring keynote conversation that will explore how narrative and storytelling are foundational to building community joy.

This interactive workshop will focus on building a sense of belonging and connection in changing communities. Communities often struggle with the stress and discomfort of change, especially when it exacerbates social isolation and inequality. This workshop will explore the importance of creating environments where residents feel connected and build social cohesion through the framework of the Welcoming Standard. The criteria in the Welcoming Standard reflect programs, policies, and practices that local governments, community organizations, and other cross-sector partners can implement to ensure that everyone, including immigrants, belongs and has the opportunity to thrive.

This workshop will also examine a local community case study demonstrating how belonging can be the antidote to othering and how the seven framework areas of the Welcoming Standard: Civic Engagement, Connected Communities, Economic Development, Education, Equitable Access, Government and Community Leadership, and Safe Communities provide a comprehensive roadmap for communities to become more welcoming places.

Learning Questions:

• How do you develop community connections across lines of difference?
• How do you build trust between long-time residents and newer arrivals to the community?
• How do you develop, strengthen, and maintain a local welcoming infrastructure?
• Why is belonging essential in times of community change or transition?
• What tools and methodologies can be utilized to combat "othering" and increase social cohesion in your community?
• How can you engage in a whole-of-community approach to welcoming that creates a sense of belonging for all residents?

How can collaboratives ethically and effectively use data and storytelling to advance systems change? This session explores practical strategies for unifying diverse expertise in policy, community engagement, and data systems to create authentic, equitable advocacy. Participants will learn how to start with the data, interpret it accurately, and weave it with lived experience to call policymakers in as partners, not targets. Presenters from Liftoff WNY and CCNY will share how their collaboration increased early childhood developmental screenings and shifted local systems to better identify and support young children. Participants will leave with clear guidance on how to build trust, translate data into consumable information for shared understanding, and craft advocacy narratives that move decision-makers to act while maintaining ethical standards and building relationships.

Learning Question:  How can collaboratives ethically use data and stories to call in decision-makers as allies in collective impact efforts?

Stop letting limited capacity kill your big ideas! In a tight funding climate, finding and securing public dollars is crucial, but it often feels overwhelming and adversarial. This session cuts through the noise. Featuring the CBO leaders who successfully piloted the Public Resource Leveraging framework in Oakland, alongside an innovative government partner, you'll learn how to transform your approach. We’ll provide a step-by-step guide with examples answering: 1. How can your organization maximize public funding impact without maxing out capacity? 2. How can Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and governments rethink their relationship around public funding? Discover the mindset shifts and institutional supports that turn the CBO- government dynamic into a symbiotic, high-impact partnership. Leave with the proven framework, guide, and the inspiration to secure your future. This is a direct follow up to last year's session "Public Resource Leverage: Bringing Practicality to a Promise in Systems Change."

Learning Question: How Do We Build Financial Permanence to Ensure Collective Impact Becomes a Legacy, Not a Project?

Too often strategies to address SDOH narrowly focus on community problems or challenges. When we only see what's broken or missing, we overlook existing strengths, resources, and capabilities already present in the community, and we trigger defensiveness, reducing engagement and willingness to participate. Instead, we want to encourage and supercharge the ingenuity that exists within communities that comes from their wisdom, norms, and lived experiences. In this session, we'll use a national initiative as an example to show how storytelling—done ethically and in partnership with communities—can shift focus from problems to the conditions that support health and well-being. By amplifying community voices and stories, we can help communities shape narratives that drive the changes they want to see in policies, practices, norms, and beliefs.

Learning Question:  How can collective impact initiatives ethically apply asset-based framing and community-led storytelling to disrupt systems-level narratives and drive equitable outcomes?

As AI enters the collective impact field, the challenge is to harness its power while safeguarding truth, relevance, ethics, and relational integrity. This session shares how Resilient DNATL—a rural, Tribal-land collaborative on California’s North Coast—and ThinkPlace US are using AI ethically in the context of community-led systems change to reduce child and youth neglect by strengthening parent capability. Local partners conducted and anonymized empathy interviews to understand diverse experiences of parenting, including experiences of crisis and system involvement. An AI-assisted, human-guided synthesis process, accelerated analysis to surface system patterns while maintaining human control of interpretation, privacy, and nuance. The resulting journey maps and system-flaw analyses now guide community-led dialogue with system leaders to widen shared understanding of root causes. Participants learn practical ways to use AI as a reflective instrument that enables complex analysis and expands insight, without eroding human judgment, care, or collective purpose and values. 

Learning Questions: 

• How can collaboratives ethically integrate AI into community-driven design and learning using its analytic power while protecting truth, privacy, and human pace?

Drawing from the Resilient DNATL parenting-journey project, participants explore how to direct AI as a reflective instrument rather than an authority: how to balance speed with emotional integration, and how to translate AI-assisted synthesis into shared, actionable understanding across sectors.

A quiet transformation is underway in the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada: one that puts residents’ well-being at the forefront and reimagines development as a community-rooted process. At the heart of this shift are over 200 passionate community members who are actively making strides to strengthen the social and economic fabric of their home community. Through support from the ACTivate program, residents are (re)discovering what makes their community unique and exploring new approaches for how to mobilize community assets and agency to strengthen their community and create positive change. This storytelling session will focus on how investing in strengths-based narrative and behavioural shifts can (re)spark community resilience, empowerment, and collective impact, using ACTivate as a case study. The lessons shared are relevant not only for educators and practitioners in tourism but anyone working across community development, adult education, and place-based economic renewal.

Learning Question:  How might strengths-based approaches spark community empowerment, well-being, and resilience?

How can communities leverage an often untapped partner, faith-based organizations, in service of better educational outcomes for America's most vulnerable children? The Leadership Initiative for Faith and Education (LIFE) dares to imagine what it would be like if each of the ~50,000 public schools in the United States that are deemed "low income" was partnered directly to one or more of the 350,000 faith communities in the US to address specific needs such as literacy development, math fluency, or ensuring every child is known by a caring adult.

We'll explore the keys to an effective partnership through a powerful case study of a faith based nonprofit, ARISE2Read, and the Memphis-Shelby Country School District. Through this collective effort, literacy rates (as measured by sight word recognition) among participants improved 614% in a single school year. This case study, along with many others that are surfacing through LIFE's landscape analysis of partnerships between faith and educational institutions, is proving what's possible everyday.

Learning Question:  How can communities leverage an often untapped resource, faith based organizations, to establish effective partnerships with educational institutions that positively impact student outcomes?

Learn how a transit advocacy organization, government planning board, Mayor's office, and public library partnered to achieve a policy win that provides free transit to thousands of young people. This session tells the story of New Orleans' Opportunity Pass a zero-fare transit pilot for youth ages 16-24 from initial research through advocacy to implementation.

The session addresses questions including:

• How do you build credible advocacy through research and evidence?
• What role can broad collective impact initiatives play in mobilizing around emerging policy opportunities?
• How do you center affected community voices in advocacy?
• What strategies move decision-makers from interest to action?

Attendees will gain practical strategies for collaborative policy advocacy and network mobilization.

Learning Question:  How can coalitions use research, strategic partnerships, and community voice to achieve policy wins and what does it take to move from concept to implementation?

How do we move from managing pain to solving problems for good? This session explores that question through a real-world story of change: how Santa Clara County's Reentry Network, in partnership with DC Design, redesigned a broken system by co-designing with currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, survivors of crime, and family members alongside more than 20 local offices and service providers. Together, they avoided building a new jail and instead created a reentry continuum of care that reduced recidivism and increased access to stable housing and employment. Participants will learn a three-step framework for authentic community co-design that uncovers root causes and connects the ecosystem to address them. Through design thinking, systems mapping, and identifying key leverage points using a lens of fortification, participants will explore how to shift power, mindsets, and collaboration across sectors and leave with pointed reflection questions to situate their engagement efforts within the full system they seek to change.

Learning Question:  How do you do community co-design in a way that truly reveals root causes and redesigns the system for lasting change?

Join the Gates Foundation and Resonance to explore a practical diagnostic tool developed from analyzing 18 collective impact coalitions. This interactive session demonstrates how to assess coalition health across five dimensions: shared vision, partner mix, MEL systems, governance, and sustainability. Learn how M4N coalition used multi-stakeholder data collection to systematically assess coalition dynamics, then translated diagnostic findings into targeted governance and operational improvements. Participants will engage through live polling and chat to customize the tool for their contexts and identify priority improvements. Leave with a ready-to-use diagnostic template and action planning framework that transforms coalition assessment into concrete strengthening strategies. Ideal for coalition coordinators, backbone organizations, and funders seeking evidence-based approaches to improve collective impact effectiveness.

Learning Question:  Is the coalition structured to enable the collective impact it aspires to achieve, and if not, what specific governance, partnership, or operational changes would close the gap between current functioning and effective collaboration?

Collective impact teams are at their best when they use data to get better at what they do; team-based meaning making is a powerful way to achieve this goal. However, data analysis can seem like a daunting task, requiring years of training and in-depth technical knowledge. It can be challenging to engage teams in digging into data together, limiting their ability to collectively understand, prioritize, and act on the information they have.

Public Profit created Dabbling in the Data: A Hands-On Guide to Participatory Data Analysis to give collective impact professionals a jumpstart in interpreting data collaboratively. In this session, we will facilitate hands-on, practical approaches to explore and analyze common types of data, using data that collective impact initiatives commonly use. Participants will learn why team-based meaning making leads to better decisions, get hands-on practice with multiple methods, and begin planning how to bring Dabbling to their own work.

Learning Question:  How can collaborative approaches to making meaning of data strengthen analysis, and what do these approaches look like in practice? Participants will learn why collaborative approaches to making meaning of data lead to more rigorous, robust analysis. Participants will preview multiple collaborative approaches through hands-on practice, and identify at least one opportunity to use collaborative meaning making approaches in their own professional settings.

This hands-on session introduces Ecosystem & Engagement Mapping, a set of participatory tools that help collaboratives visualize networks, identify gaps, and design more resonant and resilient engagement strategies. Ideal for cross-sector collaborations or community-driven teams, the session will introduce an adaptable framework that can be used to identify pinpoint areas of friction, build alignment, and strengthen trust, coordination, and shared ownership across complex systems. Participants will leave with a clear, adaptable framework they can apply directly to their own context.

Learning Question:  How can collaboratives map their ecosystems to identify where energy, friction, and opportunity exist, and use that insight to strengthen coordination and shared ownership, trust, and accountability across sectors and communities?

Narratives shape what communities believe is possible. In this hands-on session, participants will practice two free, field-tested tools that make narrative change doable inside busy collaboratives. First, the Narrative Audit Map helps teams quickly surface dominant frames, messengers, and openings to shift the story. Then, the Counter-Narrative Canvas guides partners and community members in co-creating messages that affirm identity, center equity, and point to collective action. Attendees will leave with both tools as fillable templates, plus a 30-day integration checklist to embed narrative work into existing meetings without new funding or software.

Learning Question:  How can collaboratives use simple, free tools to audit dominant narratives and co-create new ones with community members that mobilize partners and advance equitable outcomes?

How can collaboratives use participatory facilitation and partnership to co-create equity-centered policy and advocacy frameworks? This session shares tools and lessons from developing the CalFresh Healthy Living Community Impact Frameworks - a statewide effort that engaged hundreds of stakeholders to define shared goals for advancing health equity. Through landscape analysis, advisory councils, and human-centered design workshops, the process modeled how to align partners, center lived experience, and embed equity in decision-making. The session will highlight how Leah's Pantry navigated common tensions, such as balancing efficiency with emergence and community ownership with expert structure.

Participants will explore facilitation techniques including participatory budgeting, asset-framing, and collaborative data interpretation, and apply them to their own contexts. The session will highlight successes and challenges of building a large-scale framework, and how these approaches can strengthen advocacy. Attendees will leave with tools for facilitating inclusive processes that translate into actionable policy frameworks across programs and systems.

Learning Question:  What facilitation tools and participatory methods help strengthen collaboration and build strategic, equity-centered advocacy frameworks?

Join this interactive pre-session led by an expert game designer and play facilitator to experience community joy as a shared, collaborative practice. Through a few drawing-based activities (no special skills required), participants will explore how visions of place and community are formed, interpreted, and communicated. A light reflection will help surface insights relevant to the summit's daily themes around storytelling, the arts, and civic life.

Joining FSG CEO John Harper in a keynote fireside chat with Jinkx Monsoon, Broadway superstar, award-winning actor, comedian, recording artist, and two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race champion.

In this conversation on the power of the arts and creative expression, they will explore how performance, storytelling, and imagination can spark joy, provide inspiration and refuge, and help communities cultivate connection and possibility together.

How can organizations build authentic, effective partnerships with historic Black institutions that communities already trust? This session explores the "how" and "why" of working with African American churches, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and community-based organizations to achieve greater collective impact. Participants will learn why these trusted gatekeepers are essential allies in addressing disparities, advancing equity, and strengthening outcomes across sectors. The session provides practical steps for establishing partnerships, understanding leadership structures, and creating a win-win collaborations that serve both community and organizational goals. Attendees will leave with a framework for identifying potential partners, overcoming common obstacles like lack of buy-in or misaligned priorities, and developing actionable plans for success. Whether you're new to community engagement or seeking to deepen existing relationships, this how-to session offers tools for building lasting, trust-based partnerships that drive real change.

Learning Questions:  How can participants effectively engage historic Black organizations by understanding their leadership structures, community priorities, and cultural context to create partnerships that produce sustainable, equitable outcomes? How can organizations approach these trusted institutions such as churches, HBCUs, and community-based organizations with cultural humility and respect? What steps build mutual trust, align institutional goals with community needs, and ensure shared ownership of results? And ultimately, how can these authentic partnerships shift systems, strengthen collaboration, and drive long-term change rooted in equity and community voice?

At an overarching level, this session explores a central question - How can data-backed design, systems, and learning loops, enable collectives to move from shared intent to mutually beneficial, self-sustaining joint action?

Through the experience of Saamuhika Shakti, this session will unpack the 'how-to' of evolution and operationalization of the mutually reinforcing activity principle. Presenters will share the tools, processes, and design principles that helped embed collaboration into the collective's design, the journey from integrating joint action into partner contracts to using the Collaborative Activity Log (CAL) and Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) to make collaboration visible, measurable, and iterative.

Participants will gain insights on how data-informed and participatory design can foster accountability, learning, and trust-building, turning collaboration from an aspiration into a structured, self-reinforcing practice. The session will offer a replicable model for collectives seeking to strengthen early-stage alignment and accelerate purposeful collective action towards systems change.

Learning Questions:  This session will explore a central question: How can data-backed design, systems, and learning loops enable collectives to move from shared intent to mutually beneficial, self-sustaining joint action?

Drawing on six years of experience from Saamuhika Shakti, the session will examine key elements, including:

• How did the operationalization of Collective Impact principles, particularly mutually reinforcing activities, evolve across the two phases of Saamuhika Shakti, and what factors drove this evolution?
• What data-informed practices, tools, and systems were implemented to strengthen, sustain, and grow mutually reinforcing efforts?

Join us for lessons from the Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF), a national network of over 40 diverse local collaboratives, about how to assess and learn from local collaboratives' impacts on local systems and communities, in areas such as cross-system program coordination, policy change, narrative change, cross-system data sharing, and more. We’ll share the rich OYF data about the relationship of collaborative capacity to attaining systems changes, and at the typical growth patterns for collaboratives over time. We’ll look not just at what was measured, and how it was measured, but how local collaboratives in the network used that assessment information for various purposes, such as driving improvement in the collaborative, or for case making for funding, or policy change. These approaches to assessing change are not specific to youth initiatives, so if you are struggling to understand how to track systems-level change, please join us for this session!

Learning Objectives:
•    What is meant by “systems change,” and how to assess it across 7 main categories
•    Understand the relationship between collaborative capacity and attaining systems changes and examples of growth patterns for collaboratives
•    Learn a ‘light lift’ approach to assessing systems change annually, and tracking year to year impacts of a collaborative
•    Ways to use local systems change data for advocacy and improvement
 

How do you build a collaboration that lasts? This interactive session will introduce 10 proven sustainability factors that help Collect Impact Initiatives to thrive over the long term. Through real-world stories, reflection, group discussion, participants will:

• Discover what makes collective impact initiatives resilient and sustainable
• Assess your CI initiative’s sustainability strengths and challenges
• Identify practical opportunities to embed sustainability into your work

Leave with fresh insights, concrete strategies, and renewed confidence in designing collaborations that can navigate challenges and deliver lasting impact.

Workshop Goals:

• Explore the 10 sustainability for successful collaboration
• Assess the sustainability of your collaborative work 
• Develop a Sustainability Action Plan 
• Share stories, insight and learning to strengthen your collaboration’s sustainability

Ready to revolutionize your fundraising? This interactive session reveals how well-intentioned language -"at-risk youth," "underserved communities," "vulnerable populations" - unintentionally reinforces the inequities you're fighting against. We'll explore the cognitive science behind why deficit narratives persist: intuition over rational thinking, negativity bias, and fundamental attribution error that creeps into our storytelling.

Through real examples and hands-on exercises, you'll learn to identify deficit-framed language in your communications and replace it with asset-based alternatives that honor community strengths and explicitly name systemic causes of inequality. Discover how small but powerful language tweaks shift donors from external saviors to community collaborators.

You'll leave with concrete tools: before/after messaging examples, transformational vs. transactional fundraising frameworks, and strategies for reframing "overhead" as "core mission support." Learn to craft ethical narratives that foster belonging rather than othering, unlock deeper donor conversations, and create lasting collaborations, all without jeopardizing funding relationships.

Learning Questions:  How do you shift from deficit-framed fundraising language that positions communities as problems to solve and donors as the heroes who save them, to asset-based language that centers dignity and agency and levels power dynamics? Participants will learn to identify deficit language in their communications, understand the cognitive biases that perpetuate these patterns, and apply practical frameworks for transformation. You'll discover how to craft ethical narratives that honor community strengths, reframe "overhead" as mission-critical support, and engage donors in deeper conversations about systemic change - without jeopardizing funding relationships.

This session will showcase Bachman Lake Together's Parent Leadership Program as a model of community engagement and collective impact in a predominantly Latino, immigrant neighborhood. The program equips parents with leadership skills and advocacy knowledge through the Community Action Network (CAN), a program that fosters parent leaders who actively participate on the organization's board, strategy committees, and working groups. Parents co-design local education and family well-being initiatives, bridging community voice and systems, this will include the story of the model and the lessons learned.

Learning Question:  How do we intentionally build authentic, trust-based partnerships with community members - going beyond inclusion - to co-create and drive system change collaboratively, even when progress is gradual and requires sustained time?

What would it take for community-based organizations to shape the future of AI, rather than be shaped by it?

This session explores Project Resolve, a first-of-its-kind initiative that equips CBOs to co-govern AI tools and data systems. Through participatory training and design, community leaders are redefining how data is shared, trusted, and used to deliver services, from food access to navigating health services to housing support. Participants will learn how this model builds digital fluency, equity, and collaboration across institutions. The session will share actionable tools and lessons for embedding community voice in AI design, ensuring emerging technologies strengthen, not erode, trust and equity.

Learning Question:  How can community-based organizations lead in shaping ethical AI and data-sharing ecosystems that build trust, equity, and collaboration, rather than deepen existing divides?

The Neighborhood Network Initiative supports residents by driving economic development that aligns with community priorities and uses creative cross-sector partnerships to attract new private investment. United Way and Austin Coming Together have worked to move beyond conventional corporate social responsibility partnerships and instead, engage companies' core competencies for the benefit of all parties. These unique partnerships leverage the expertise of neighborhood organizations and residents, corporations, non-profit, and philanthropic partners to work toward shared success. Session attendees will learn how to leverage existing funding and board relationships to foster more inclusive economic growth in disinvested communities.

Learning Question:  How can you attract deeper investment and partnership by understanding private sector priorities and creating business opportunities that align with community goals?

Artificial intelligence holds promise for making collaboratives more efficient - but it can also create risks around equity, transparency, and trust. This session asks: How can nonprofits and cross-sector collaboratives use AI responsibly to strengthen collaboration while centering equity? Participants will learn about practical, free AI tools that can reduce administrative burden, improve cross-partner communication, and support data-driven storytelling. At the same time, the session introduces the AI Equity Checklist, a framework to assess whether tools are fair, transparent, accessible, and inclusive of community voice. Through hands-on practice and real-world examples, attendees will explore both opportunities and challenges of using AI in collective impact work. Participants will leave with concrete tools, prompts, and strategies they can adapt immediately to ensure AI supports - not undermines - their collaborative efforts.

Learning Question: How can collaboratives use artificial intelligence tools to strengthen coordination, reduce administrative burden, and tell more powerful stories - while ensuring these tools are applied responsibly and equitably? Specifically, what practical steps can leaders take to evaluate AI for bias, accessibility, and community trust, and how can the AI Equity Checklist guide decision-making so that technology supports, rather than undermines, collective impact?

The session will engage with the questions “How can community dashboards be leveraged as a tool for community-centered and data driven coalition building? And how can you use the tools shared to build towards having a community dashboard to drive your work? by identifying the key practices that increase the value and impact of community dashboards, examining the role of and opportunity for public and private data sources and the challenges of developing, maintaining and effectively utilizing community dashboards, and sharing a new tool for dashboard development.

Learning Question:  How can community dashboards be developed and leveraged as a tool for community-centered and data driven coalition building?

Nesha will lead the session Moves That Matter: Communication Strategies for Every Stage of Grants Management, focusing on transforming grants management from a transactional process into a relationship-centered strategy. Participants will explore how soft skills communication, emotional intelligence, and relationship-building can strengthen funder relationships at every stage, from cultivation and solicitation to stewardship and renewal. Through practical tools and real-world examples, attendees will learn how to communicate impact effectively, deepen engagement, and secure long-term support for their community development initiatives. This session directly supports the theme, Fundraising and Sustaining Momentum, by showing how strategic communication can turn funders into lasting partners and champions of mission-driven work.

Learning Questions:

1. How can communication, emotional intelligence, and relationship-building transform grants management from a transactional process into a relationship-centered strategy that strengthens funder partnerships and drives sustained investment?
2. How do you apply moves management to your overall grant strategy so that funder cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, and renewal all build toward long-term, equity-centered partnerships?
3. How can intentional communication and funder stewardship turn every stage of the grants management cycle - from first contact to multi-year renewal - into moves that matter for equity, trust, and lasting impact?

How can collective impact partners stay grounded and connected when values, priorities, or beliefs pull in opposite directions? This interactive session introduces two complementary tools polarity mapping and self-inquiry practices inspired by Byron Katie's The Work. Self-inquiry invites participants to look inward, examining how their own beliefs and assumptions may amplify polarities within the partnership field. Polarity mapping is a visual and facilitative tool that helps groups identify and navigate tensions between interdependent values - such as relationship and results, or stability and change - so both sides can be leveraged for the good of the whole. Through hands-on exercises and guided reflection, participants will practice seeing how the personal and collective mirror each other. Together, these tools offer a practical and reflective framework for sustaining authentic relationships, advancing equity, and building resilience in complex, multi-sector collaborations.

Learning Question:  How can partners in collective impact initiatives use polarity mapping and self-inquiry to transform differences into clarity and polarization into possibility, creating alignment, shared learning, and more equitable collaboration?

Storytelling offers a human-centered approach to evaluation, one that values lived experience, collective meaning-making, and cultural context as credible forms of evidence. By elevating stories, evaluators create space to center community members' voices and explore how experience is both shared and understood.

In this session, we explore how the National Collaborative for Health Equity and evaluation consultants Success Measures and Datashine used storytelling as a powerful tool for evaluating the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing, a leadership support program. Participants will learn how participant stories reveal shifts in individual practices, leadership approaches, and systems of power.

We'll explore:
-Why storytelling is a valuable methodology for collective impact efforts
-Practical strategies to apply storytelling in evaluation initiatives to deepen equity and measure change beyond numbers.

Learning Question:  What makes storytelling a useful and equitable approach for learning and evaluation in collective impact work?

Start your Summit experience with a calming yoga and meditation pre-session led by Certified Yoga Practitioner Kayla Brooks. Through gentle movement and guided mindfulness, participants will be invited to center themselves, reconnect with their bodies, and create space for presence. Movement and mindfulness will be offered with modifications, and participants are welcome to engage in whatever way feels right for them. All abilities and experience levels are welcome.

Joining FSG CEO John Harper in a keynote fireside chat with Jinkx Monsoon, Broadway superstar, award-winning actor, comedian, recording artist, and two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race champion.

In this conversation on the power of the arts and creative expression, they will explore how performance, storytelling, and imagination can spark joy, provide inspiration and refuge, and help communities cultivate connection and possibility together.

How do communities move from scarcity thinking to abundance in order to build well-being? Get practical lessons from Aspen CSG's asset-based development model, drawn from more than a decade of collaboration with regional organizations. Participants will learn how strong collective impact efforts start with community-defined priorities, foster inclusive decision-making, and build long-term trust. The session will highlight tools for shifting mental models, aligning funding with community priorities, and sustaining cross-sector partnerships. Speakers will share real-world examples of systems change, including stronger leadership pipelines, new cross-sector collaboration, and funder practices that support equity and local capacity. Attendees will leave with concrete strategies for applying the model to their own initiatives to strengthen collaboration, equity, and long-term impact.

Learning Question:  How can collective impact initiatives apply asset-based development principles to strengthen equity, trust, and long-term well-being in their communities?

How can communities use data not just for reporting, but for building relationships and co-creating programs that matter? In this interactive session, participants will explore how to use data collectively to inform and deepen community engagement. We'll share practical tools and frameworks for collaborative data collection, consent, ownership, and stewardship that center community voices and equity. Participants will learn how shared data can spark dialogue, inspire program design, and strengthen accountability. Drawing from real-world case studies, we'll highlight how communities have turned shared insights into meaningful, community-driven action. Attendees will leave with strategies and templates to support equitable, data-informed program development in their own collectives.

Learning Question:  How can data be used collaboratively to strengthen community engagement and co-create more responsive, equitable programs?

Texas recently launched its first coordinated effort to define Opportunity Youth in state law. While the bill did not pass, it built bipartisan momentum and created a shared policy framework across education, workforce, and community systems. This session will walk through the legislative process behind that effort and show how cross sector partnerships, shared data, and aligned messaging created durable policy traction.

Participants will learn strategies to translate local collective impact models into statewide policy strategies. They will explore how to build legislative champions, coordinate partners around a shared agenda, and use data to strengthen credibility. Attendees will leave with practical tools to move from community collaboration to systems level change.
 

What does it take to fund collective impact work that lasts beyond initial grants and sustain systems change over 10+ years? This interactive session explores the critical gap between funding projects and funding networks, drawing on real examples from long-thriving networks and collaboratives that have successfully navigated funding transitions. We'll examine diverse funding mixes beyond traditional foundation grants, discover emerging innovations from networks designing their own funding structures, and apply key principles for sustainable funding to your own context. Through interactive discussion, peer learning, and hands-on tools, you'll develop a strategic approach that moves beyond scrambling for the next grant cycle toward building a movement-oriented funding model, leaving with practical strategies and concrete next steps.

Learning Objectives: By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand diverse funding models across different types of collaboratives and evaluate emerging innovations (networks building funding infrastructure, staged pipeline models, pooled funds, non-traditional revenue) for applicability to your context.
• Productively leverage critical funding tensions (such as quick wins vs. systemic change, centralized vs. decentralized approaches, and funder vs. network language) using both/and strategies.
• Start to draft a strategic resourcing plan that identifies your priority next steps for building funding capacity individually and collectively, and connect with peers facing similar challenges to continue learning beyond the summit.
   

1) Discuss the importance of youth leadership development opportunities integrated in organizational work, particularly for youth with lived-experience in multiple systems.

2) Highlight high-impact strategies such as Youth Boards/Councils.

3) Outline best practices for establishing and maintaining the methods of youth input discussed.

Learning Question:  How do you expand the reach and longevity of youth-engagement in your organizational structure and work, while increasing leadership opportunities overall for youth and young adults - including those disconnected from work and school?

Join civic innovator and author Eric Liu (Citizen University) for an engaging keynote conversation exploring how civic engagement is essential to building and sustaining community joy and strong communities.