Upcoming Events
Check back regularly for the latest upcoming events. You can also view highlights from past events below.
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Funder Roundtable
Leading Forward joins the Zilber Family Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and Leading Transitions LLC for a funder roundtable on healthy leadership transitions on December 2nd in Milwaukee, WI. Together we’ll explore how funding practices can help, or hinder, leaders stepping into their roles, and what funders can do differently.
GEO Change Leaders in Philanthropy
Open only to GEO Change Leaders Community
Hot Topic: Supporting Equitable & Effective Leadership Transition
Shari Silberstein (Cohort 5; formerly COO at Fund for Non-Violence and currently consulting) will host an interactive “hot topic” call with guest speaker Bipasha Ray from Leading Forward. Together we’ll explore how community-centered grantmaking practice includes supporting effective and equitable non-profit leadership transitions.
National Network of Fiscal Sponsors Conference
National Network of Fiscal Sponsors Conference
Beyond Succession: Leadership Transitions in Fiscal Sponsors as Ecosystem Inflection Points
Fiscal sponsors aren't just nonprofits— they're incubators, risk managers, and hubs for entire ecosystems of projects and funders. So what happens when their leadership changes hands? This session digs into the high-stakes reality of fiscal sponsor transitions and what it takes to fund them well.
Session Speakers:
Leading Forward partners Toni Moceri, ED, Allied Media Project & Morgan (Mo) Willis, Co-Executive Director, Third Wave Fund
Register now to save your spot– open only to registered conference attendees.
Virtual Workshop: Council of Michigan Foundations
Our sector is experiencing a surge of leadership transitions, and data suggests more are ahead, driven by generational shifts, funding instability, burnout, and broader structural challenges. Coordinated with Leading Forward, this session explores two facets of this reality: leadership transitions within foundations themselves, and the role foundations can play when their nonprofit partners experience change.
GEO 2026 National Conference
Join Leading Forward for an interactive workshop featuring firsthand perspectives from a movement organization, a field builder, and a peer funder on what it looks like when transitions are properly resourced — and why it matters urgently for nonprofits advancing justice right now.
2025 Unity Summit
Nonprofit leadership transitions are on the rise. Yet too often underfunded and stigmatized. In our interactive workshop, Funding Acts of Courage - Supporting Nonprofit Leadership Transitions at this year’s Unity Summit in Minneapolis, we’ll hear from community leaders why transitions matter for strong, healthy and resilient movements and walk through practical strategies from our Action Guide for Funders.
In the second half, funders will share and explore trust-based approaches, practical resourcing strategies, and narratives to support and honor leadership and executive transitions before, during and after they occur.
Nonprofit Leadership Transitions: How to Operationalize Trust-Based Practices
Recent reports, including one by the Cricket Island Foundation, show that philanthropy hasn't adapted practices to help nonprofits successfully navigate leadership transitions. Funders often treat transitions as a crisis rather than embracing them as a normal part of an organizational life cycle. pushing many groups into instability. In today's socio-political climate, supporting sustainable leadership transitions is crucial.
Join us for a conversation with funder-nonprofit pairs to explore what enabled their partnerships to navigate nonprofit leadership transitions successfully, followed by a group discussion. This session is for those looking to better support their grantee partners through leadership transitions.
What will you learn?
How to operationalize a trust-based approach to leadership transitions
Understanding of wrap-around supports CEOs and staff need during critical junctures in preparing for, implementing, and following up after leadership transitions (e.g., coaching, capacity building, etc.)
Best practices for philanthropy in supporting leadership transitions that center the nonprofit partner
How to normalize leadership transitions as part of organizational life cycles
Recommendations for funder shifts, what works, and what conditions enable authentic conversations.
Shifting Practice: How to Better Support Grantee Leadership Transitions
Funders need to understand the challenges associated with BIPOC leadership transitions and develop better strategies to support organizations and new leaders. Join us at Exponent Philanthropy’s Annual Conference to learn why it's critical to embrace leadership transitions as a normal part of the organizational lifecycle and how you can support them as a regular part of our work.
Community of Practice for Funders: June 2024 Meeting
Space for funders to speak with peers about the joys and challenges of funding your nonprofit partners through leadership transitions, particularly those involving leaders of color.
This open space format will include a brief presentation and context setting and lots of time for peer-to-peer discussions, resource sharing, and support.
Trust-Based Funding for Healthy Nonprofit Leadership Transitions
A recent report sponsored by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Brilliant Transformations: Toward Full Flourishing in BIPOC Leadership Transitions, contains key recommendations for funders who are looking to lean into leadership transition work.
Join this values-driven and action-oriented session to learn from social sector professionals who are leaning into trust - and leaning into the change - with new strategies to support leaders who are leaving, leaders who are entering, and the board and staff who manage the change from old to new.
Funding BIPOC-led Organizations in Transition
NFG’s April Member Call will bring together some of its members (including Leading Forward!) who have been collaborating to address this issue and ensure that BIPOC-led organizations in a transition period are receiving the funding that they need. This action-oriented session about the practical strategies they’re using to support BIPOC leadership in the nonprofit sector and to learn more about their funder organizing efforts to call for a broader shift in grantmaker practices.