2026 Line Up
This event is brought to you by DH Leonard Consulting, Grant Professionals Association, and GrantStation.
Catherine Hooper, MA, GPC
Clear, timely communication is an easily missed opportunity to improve our work, our teams, and our professional quality of life. Grant writers are often in the facilitator role for grant applications, but there are opportunities to use those skills beyond the application itself to make your grant team and overall organization stronger.
Hannah Wiginton
If you're searching for grants but need fresh ideas beyond the usual grant research process, this session is for you. I'll share 7 creative research strategies I've used as a grants director to find grants and funders. You'll leave with out-of-the-box ideas to expand your funding search and discover grant opportunities.
Kristin Livingstone
Sharing an impact story in a grant application is an important part of many grant applications. However, the larger goal should be to tell impact stories across all organizational communication channels as you just never know where a grantmaker or a stakeholder connected to a grantmaker may see your impact story.
Becky Jascoviak, MBA, GPC, RSM
Nearly every grant application asks how the program will be sustained following the grant period or after the initial funding is exhausted. Even if it's not a specific question, building sustainability into program design is smart business and organizational development. Explore how organizations are utilizing community resources, third party giving, social enterprises, and inkind support to build a sustainable program plan. .... a much better answer than ""we'll conduct additional fundraising."" The session is built on the four key checkpoints for sustainability alongside a template sustainability statement both of which will be provided to attendees.
Marc Smithers, EdD
Receiving a rejection notification on an application you felt certain you would win is one of the hardest moments in the life of the grant professional. It is also one of the greatest opportunities for personal growth and organizational transformation. The ability for the grant professional to reframe an unexpected rejection into an unanticipated yet beneficial chance for self-reflection, reorientation, and resilience is an essential skill for the novice and the seasoned grantseeker. This session explores how tools from student development theory can help grant professionals reframe rejection from a setback into a powerful learning opportunity. Participants will leave with actionable advice and skills, including specific reflection prompts, debrief questions for individuals and teams, and team-based strategies to help utilize rejection into an opportunity for personal growth and institutional learning.
Ellen Gugel, GPC, GPA Approved Trainer
Measuring Outcomes: Measure What Matters, Keep it Simple provides tools and a framework for arriving at meaningful, measurable program outcomes. It will illustrate and provide examples of how to guide program staff to the outcomes that matter and the metrics to measure them that show a funder that your program is effective.