Session Topics

Browse 2023 Featured Topics

Harnessing AR For More
Profound and Accessible
Storytelling

Idris Brewster, Founder and Executive Director, Kinfolk

Kinfolk specializing in bringing the underrepresented history of black and brown people to light using technology, with the ultimate mission of uprooting oppressive systems and reconsidering public spaces through art, technology, and storytelling.

Hear Kinfolk’s Co-Founder share his experience building and leading Kinfolk and the development of their flagship Augmented Reality app, which allows anyone with a smartphone the ability to place an AR monument that celebrates and honors history’s underrepresented heroes in community centers, local museums, living rooms, and more.

Claiming Nonprofit's Seat
at the AI Table

Emily Yu, Founder and CEO, AI PRIORI, INC.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to disrupt every industry, including the public sector. Faced with the power, promise, and potential peril of AI, nonprofit leaders possess expertise in strategies critical to addressing AI’s technical and adaptive challenges. Join us as we explore the role of community-centered approaches in machine learning and how nonprofit leaders can apply them to further their organization’s goals.

Bringing Tech, Data, Research,
and Design Capabilities to the
Child Wellfare Field

Sixto Cancel, CEO, Think of Us

Think of Us is a research and design lab for the social sector. Led and guided by people who have been directly impacted by the child welfare system, they publish groundbreaking research, work with cities, states, and tribes to co-design and implement solutions to long-standing challenges, and advise federal and state policy makers on effective, bipartisan solutions.

Think of Us have raised $47M through the Audacious project for a five-year project to scale their capacity to bring tech, data, research, and design capabilities to the child welfare field.

Artificial Intelligence, Human
Values: Scaling your Impact
through Responsible AI

Erin McHugh Saif, Microsoft Tech for Social Impact

How we work is changing by the minute. Join this session to explore groundbreaking technologies, including Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, that are transforming the work of nonprofit professionals from too overwhelming to more strategic.

We’ll discuss great tools and compelling reasons to learn and leverage generative AI and machine learning for fundraising, productivity, and donor communications in ways rooted to your ethics and values so that your organization can achieve greater program effectiveness and mission impact.

IT Infrastructure

Managing Risk: How
Tools like SOC & SIEM
Can Help Secure Your Org

Francis Johnson, Chief Technology Officer, Tech Impact

As security measures continue to grow, so does the threat landscape they are trying to protect against. SOC (Security Operations Center) and SIEM (Security Incident Event Management) combine two powerhouse services that help nonprofits stay ahead of attackers.

SOC is the team of security professionals that manages an organization’s security operations. While SIEM is the software solution used by the SOC to collect, analyze, and report on security data. SOC and SIEM play a critical role in maintaining an organization’s security posture and protecting against cyber threats. In this session, learn about what this means for nonprofits, how to identify your specific needs, and build an action plan to help ensure your organization’s safety.

Everyone Gets a (Cybersecurity
and Privacy) Framework!

Junell Felsburg, Sr. Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure, The Columbus Foundation

As cybersecurity threats and compliance requirements continue to grow and expand, it’s more important than ever for organizations to have a clear and comprehensive cybersecurity program in place. But with so many frameworks and recommendations, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s where the Secure Controls Framework comes in.

In this session, designed for organizational leaders building or expanding their cybersecurity programs, you’ll learn how to use the Secure Controls Framework, Maturity Modeling, and objective-based implementation programs to create a program customized for your organization’s needs.

The best part? The Secure Controls Framework isn’t just another set of rules to follow. Instead, it provides a clear framework for organizing and building secure and compliant cybersecurity and privacy programs that work. And because they have overlapping components with other frameworks and recommendations, you can be sure you’re building a program based on real-world best practices. You’ll leave with the tools and knowledge to build a strong, effective, compliant cybersecurity program that protects your organization from even the most sophisticated threats.

Do you need Digitalization or
a Digital Transformation?

Matthew Bonn, Sr. Functional Consultant, Zuri

When organizations are ready to focus on updating and upgrading their systems and procedures, it’s important to understand different methodologies and their benefits. In this session, we’ll examine the difference between digitalization and digital transformation, and why organizations need to transform, not just automate their businesses. We’ll cover the challenges, approaches, and areas of transformation through metrics and workbooks to map out customized plans.

Prepping for Cybersecurity
Insurance Requirements

Maybe not at the top of your list of fun things to do, but having cybersecurity insurance is a must-have for all nonprofits. Insurance companies are now requiring minimum standards for policy holders. Just like your homeowners insurance requires locks on the doors and smoke detectors, cyber insurance requires MFA, email filtering, DNS filtering, endpoint detection and more before issuing a policy.

Work with our tech experts to walkthrough a checklist of the standard requirements to prepare for your cyber insurance policy renewal.

Navigating Identity for Nonprofits:
A Step-by-Step Approach to
Strengthening Security and Enhancing Trust

Jon Lehtinen, Senior Director of Okta on Okta and Board Member at IDPro

Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving landscape, and nonprofits face unique challenges when it comes to identity management and security. Limited IT and security personnel, funding constraints, and a myriad of stakeholders to protect like donors, and program recipients can slow adoption of technology, ultimately leaving sensitive data vulnerable and putting stakeholder trust at risk.

This presentation will guide IT and security practitioners through a step-by-step approach to identity and access management. You’ll learn why to prioritize identity components like single sign-on, lifecycle management, and passwordless authentication, how to identity considerations for protecting and fostering trust with volunteers, donors, members, and program recipients, and hear how other organizations have effectively navigated the identity journey and achieved tangible improvements in security and stakeholder trust.

Data Management

How Dashboards Changed
Our Organization

Brian Ford, Chief of Staff, National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE)

Dashboards are a popular concept, and for good reason. When built with intentionality, they are a quick and easy snapshot of organizational data that save your constituents a great deal of time. We are excited to bring you an interactive session where you can explore inefficiencies to target and resolve through easily digestible reports and extraordinary clarity. (Spoiler alert: open dialogue about what does not work [and why] is KEY!)

Join the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) team for a peek behind the curtain at how they created efficiencies and built an interactive reporting dashboard for staff and board members without breaking the bank. This simple, but powerful technology created a vehicle to better communicate KPI and impact data real time. Learn how NEFE identified the gap, turned it into an opportunity and created a solution that continues to evolve and support the organization.

Data Warehouse or House
of Cards? How to Tell If You
Need a Data Warehouse

Taj Carson, CEO, Inciter

In a world where everyone is talking about machine learning and artificial intelligence, a data warehouse sounds positively pedestrian. Not so fast – even though data warehouses are more accessible and affordable than ever before, they require a lot of technical expertise and resources.

Join this session where we will help you develop a framework for your organization to decide whether you should use a data warehouse. We will cover things like whether you have (or want to have) the capacity to support it, how comfortable you are managing data security in a cloud-based warehouse, and cost vs. benefit analysis. Leave with a better understanding of whether and how your organization can benefit from a warehouse.

Becoming Data-Driven,
Not Just Data-Justified

“Are we actually making a difference? Are we making the impact we think we are making?” The team at REACH Riverside knew they were collecting a lot of important data points, but were struggling with how to understand and present this information in an actionable and digestible way to their different audiences. Hear how a request for standardized data assessments became the catalyst for an organizational-wide data culture change that kept these questions in the forefront.

Empowering Nonprofits with
Ethical AI

Ryan Harrington, Tech Impact’s Data Lab

Discover how nonprofit organizations can strategically integrate AI solutions while upholding ethical standards in this lightning talk. Dive into the practical application of Tech Impact’s Data Innovation Lab’s Ethical AI Framework, designed to harmonize community needs and organizational goals within data projects, ensuring a responsible and impactful implementation.

Data-driven Social Impact:
An introduction to SIRE

Hec Maldonado-Reis, Tech Impact’s Data Lab

Here’s a common issue: nonprofits need funds to obtain and leverage data, yet need data to obtain funds. How do we bridge this gap? With the increasing need to collect and utilize more operational and programmatic information with limited resources, The Data Lab has developed Social Impact Reporting and Evaluation (SIRE), a tool that aims to support community-level change.

Join this session to understand the different organizational learning opportunities that relate to social impact-driven work, determine your social impact strategy engagement readiness related to your data maturity, and become familiar with SIRE and its advantages.

Analytics Doesn't Need To Be
Dramatic To Be Valuable

Andrew Patricio, Principal, Digital Services, Unidos US

With terms like “data science” we may be guilty of unconsciously setting unrealistically high expectations when we make the case for analytics to our colleagues and leadership. But in reality, organizations don’t need it to be that daunting, or to wait for some unexpected program result or startling correlation to justify an investment in analytics. It’s less about insights in results than insights in actions: what can and does your analytics tell you about what to do next?

Join this session to hear how Unidos harnessed experimentation in analytics – systematically trying different approaches and iterating towards what is most effective – and how you can take your analytics from dramatic promises to ubiquitous usage.

Data Visualizations And Its
Place in Public Policy

Hec Maldonado-Reis, Tech Impact’s Data Lab

When making decisions on budget and resource allocations, legislators often use one-point-in-time data, leaving vital information behind. But what if these decisionmakers had access to analytic tools that allowed for interactive exploration of their constituent data? To help legislators understand both historical and current resource allocation in their own districts, Tech Impact’s Data Lab merged, analyzed, and visualized public data with Housing Authority data to provide a more holistic view of affordable housing needs in that area. Explore and be inspired how nonprofits can leverage data visualization for programmatic planning and lead advocacy with local legislation.

With examples like these, explore and be inspired on how non-profits can leverage data visualizations for programmatic planning and leading advocacy with legislators.

A Breakthrough
by Happenstance

Barbara Rykaczewski, Mikva Challenge

Mikva Challenge, an action civics nonprofit organization, had a hunch. We had data and evidence that our program had a very positive impact on a young person’s civic knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.. And, anecdotally, we knew our programming also had a strong impact on a young person’s socio-emotional learning as well, but didn’t have data as evidence. Then a stroke of luck and great technology changed that – hear why!

Strategy and Innovation

Emerging Best Practices in
Tech Funding

Chantal Forster, Executive Director, Technology Association of Grantmakers

Funding nonprofit tech is gaining traction in philanthropy as grantmakers seek to provide operational support and avoid the nonprofit starvation cycle. Learn 3 emerging best practices from tech funders throughout the U.S.

Bringing Tech Efficiencies and Data Collection to Farmers Market

Hugo Mogollon, Executive Director, FRESHFARM

FRESHFARM promotes sustainable agriculture and improves food access, education, and equity in the Mid-Atlantic region. Hear how through their “Market Tracker” project, an open-source data and financial management tool that tracks, manages, and evaluates farmers market data, they helped more than 200 farmers and producers and 60,000 market shoppers better understand vendor sales, redemption of federal nutrition benefits, and potential matching programs to better serve local communities.

Embedding DEI in Digital
Program Delivery

Kristen McNutt, Director of Operations and Client Experience, Bridgespan Leadership Accelerator

Many nonprofit leaders are asking “what does it mean to ‘center equity’ in our online/digital program design and delivery?” We’ll talk about how Bridgespan seeks to center equity into its team-based capacity building programs delivered via online tools and virtual coaching. We will share a framework that can be a starting point for diving deeper into racial equity across program operations, in particular in a remote or hybrid environment. And we will open up discussion to learn from each other about addressing blind spots and biases in virtual program delivery.

Team Gleason Outgrew their
Technology, Inspiring A Change
That Focused on Scaling

Dan Lammot, threshold.world & Kenny Mellor, Team Gleason

Team Gleason has been serving the ALS community for over a decade, growing their services and their unique organization year over year. Throughout those years they began to compile solutions that could get jobs done, but eventually made their mission more difficult to deliver on. Join us to learn about how Team Gleason partnered with threshold.world to design and build on top of Microsoft technology to ensure their continued growth would not be hindered by technology, but actually help scale that growth.

AI for Nonprofits: From Theory
to Practice - Understanding
Considerations and Unlocking Impact

Kaitlin Canalichio, Data Scientist, Data Lab

Join this interactive workshop designed for organizations interested in exploring realistic and relatable uses of AI in nonprofits.

Explore real-life examples of predictive modeling, generative models like ChatGPT, and machine learning being used to evaluate and improve a nonprofit’s impact and efficiencies, and then work together to discover the challenges relying on artificial intelligence including ethical concerns, bias, and more.

Building A Visualization Dashboard

Lee Broderick, Senior Consultant, Tech Impact

Building a dashboard is easy, but understanding what data to use and how to best present it is a challenge many organizations miss. Using the build of an Annual Report as an example, learn about best practices and how to get started visualizing data for your organization.

This workshop will focus on the steps organizations need to take before they begin the visualization build including drawing out your report, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), and documenting where the data for each metric lives. Designed for leadership members, development staff, or any other team members looking for visualization tools, this workshop does not require technical expertise.

Accelerating the Work
of Makers: Building Custom
Tech Solutions for Civil Society
Organizations

Wojciech Rustecki, TechSoup

In order to achieve their goals, nonprofits need customized technology solutions tailored to their specific needs for addressing community issues: we call these Makers. There is a growing global movement of Makers who develop technology solutions and apps for the public good to support civil society organizations and the people they serve. These Makers, whether they are technologists, community organizers, or program managers, need more support. Whether it’s tools, data, funding or community learning, focusing on the Makers themselves can lead to the development of more sustainable and shareable solutions.

Explore a new model for approaching public good technology projects, drawing from literature reviews, interviews with Makers, and extensive experience with civil society organizations worldwide. This session will provide practical guidance for organizations seeking to design custom technology solutions, whether it’s a spreadsheet, automated workflows, or a mobile app designed to address their needs.

Accessibility is not Accessible!
What You Need to Know

Marcus Iannozzi, Tech Impact

Ensuring that your nonprofit’s digital products are accessible to all users represents more than civic duty—increasingly, it is both a legal requirement and a smart way to expand your audiences. But, ironically for many nonprofits, the standards and responsibilities around these guidelines are murky and mystifying. This lightning talk will distill the most important concepts and strategies you need to know to both launch accessible digital products and keep them compliant over time.

Session Topics

Browse 2023 Featured Topics

Harnessing AR For More Profound and Accessible Storytelling

Claiming Nonprofit's Seat at the AI Table

Bringing Tech, Data, Research, and Design Capabilities to the Child Wellfare Field

Artificial Intelligence, Human Values: Scaling your Impact through Responsible AI

IT Infrastructure

Managing Risk: How Tools like SOC & SIEM Can Help Secure Your Org

Everyone Gets a (Cybersecurity and Privacy) Framework!

Do you need Digitalization or a Digital Transformation?

Prepping for Cybersecurity Insurance Requirements

Navigating Identity for Nonprofits: A Step-by-Step Approach to Strengthening Security and Enhancing Trust

Data Management

How Dashboards Changed Our Organization

Data Warehouse or House of Cards? How to Tell If You Need a Data Warehouse

Becoming Data-Driven, Not Just Data-Justified

Empowering Nonprofits with Ethical AI

Data-driven Social Impact: An introduction to SIRE

Analytics Doesn't Need To Be Dramatic To Be Valuable

Data Visualizations And Its Place in Public Policy

A Breakthrough by Happenstance