(Photo by iStock/FilippoBacci)

The 2020 Nonprofit Management Institute (NMI) featured public-sector leaders, the heads of nonprofits and businesses, and academics sharing their insight into innovative social sector responses to the COVID-19 crisis. They explored topics that included: transparency between funders and grantees; how to rapidly change programs and services; managing distributed teams; implementing crisis communications; and lessons for nonprofits from the Great Recession of 2008. 

To help NMI attendees make the most out of the event, SSIR's editors recapped the virtual conference and assembled a list of related articles. 

Session 1: An Event or an Era? Key Tools to More Effectively Manage the COVID-19 Future

Joanna Burleson and Sarah Brayton of the Monitor Institute by Deloitte discussed how nonprofit organizations and funders can use scenario planning to help prepare for the landscape beyond the COVID-19 crisis.

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Session 2: Building Nonprofit Resiliency: How to Create a 'Playbook' for the Future

Meera Chary of The Bridgespan Group led a conversation with Anne Marie Burgoyne of Emerson Collective, Cassandra Herring of Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, and Diana Torres of United Farm Workers Foundation about leading teams through a process of creating a "playbook" for the future that accounts for looming risks, uncertainties, and barriers.

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Session 3: A Seat at the Table: The Importance of Diverse Stakeholders in Rebuilding Local Economies

Kathleen Kelly Janus with the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Tara Lynn Gray of Fresno Black Chamber of Commerce, Don Howard of the James Irvine Foundation, and Karthick Ramakrishnan of the Center for Innovation, UC Riverside, discussed efforts by government, foundations, and others in inland California to support nonprofits who represent diverse stakeholders, increasing those organizations' participation in economic planning, and how to replicate the projects elsewhere in the United States. 

"The philanthropic community has a huge opportunity to make a difference by investing in Black-led, Black-run organizations that are close to the problem." —Tara Lynn Gray of Fresno Black Chamber of Commerce

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Session 4: Getting Connected: How Chinese Nonprofits Are Effectively Leveraging Social Media in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Using the example of 200 Chinese nonprofits collaborating on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wei Luo and Wenjuan Harriet Zheng of Stanford PACS explored how nonprofit organizations elsewhere could realize the full potential of social media platforms.

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Session 5: Bringing Design Thinking to Place-Based Networks During the Pandemic: A Human-Centered, Systems-Minded, Strategically-Aligned, and Equity-Grounded Approach for Social Sector Leaders

Nadia Roumani of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (the d.school) led a discussion with Roman Sanchez of the City of El Paso and Heather Tsavaris, principal consultant for Human:Kind at the Columbus Foundation, about their recent experiences with place-based, network-oriented programs.

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Session 6: Philanthropy in a Crisis: Rhetoric or Real Change?

Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Hilary Pennington of the Ford Foundation, and Anthony Richardson of the Nord Family Foundation discussed how foundations have responded to the COVID-19 crisis.

"I have not seen such rapid collective action in my 13 years of philanthropy." — Hilary Pennington describes the response to Ford Foundation’s call for funders to be more flexible and quick in response to COVID-19.

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Session 7: Radically Adapting to a New World: How to Make the Most Impact during Ever-Changing and Ever-Challenging Times

Jim Bildner of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation talked with Clementine Jacoby of Recidiviz and Wawira Njiru of Food for Education about how their organizations made strategic pivots at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Session 8: Impact Beyond Organizational Boundaries: How Collaboration Can Help Nonprofits Become More Sustainable and Effective

Heather McLeod Grant of Open Impact, Fred Brown of The Forbes Funds, Pittsburgh, Jessica Cavagnero of New York Mergers and Collaboration Fund and SeaChange Capital Partners, David Garza of Henry Street Settlement, and Jennifer Price-Letscher of the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation discussed building nonprofit capacity for sustained collaboration.

Partnerships stem from "godzilla moments" when there’s a community need or benefit or risk that no one can go through alone. — David Garza of Henry Street Settlement

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Session 9: Humanizing the Workplace for Ourselves and Our Teams, Part 1: Self-Awareness

Leah Weiss of the Stanford Graduate School of Business discussed the importance of building personal and organizational resilience in these tumultuous times.

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Session 10: No Time Like the Present: Reimagining Capitalism

In this keynote presentation, Mark Kramer of FSG spoke with Rebecca Henderson of Harvard University about her book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire.

“When a firm is trying to raise its diversity, what's the first thing they do? They get on the phone with an NGO … NGOs are brilliant at pushing" for change. —Rebecca Henderson of Harvard University, author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire 

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Session 11: Discussing What It Means to Be an American

Deval Patrick, founder of TogetherFUND PAC and the former governor of Massachusetts, and Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation, discussed civil society and cultural values in this keynote panel.

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Session 12: All Together Now: Orchestrated Collective Action in Response to COVID-19

Johanna Mair, academic editor at SSIR and professor at the Hertie School, led a discussion on strategically orchestrating social innovation in times of crisis with Holke Brammer of ProjectTogether, Thomas Gegenhuber of Leuphana University Lüneburg, Christina Lang of 4Germany, and Inger Paus of Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications.

“Hackathons are the beginning, not the end, of the social innovation journey." — Thomas Gegenhuber of Leuphana University Lüneburg

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Session 13: Humanizing the Workplace for Ourselves and Our Teams, Part 2: Community

Leah Weiss of the Stanford Graduate School of Business discussed the connections between well-being, compassion, and community during a crisis.

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Session 14: Making Use of the Window COVID-19 Opened on Racial Justice

In this panel, Autumn McDonald of New America CA, Don Chen of the Surdna Foundation, Rodney Foxworth of Common Future, Angela Hanks of Groundwork Collaborative, and Jamie Merisotis of Lumina Foundation explored why tackling systemic racism is a critical element of a much-needed, re-imagined social contract.

"We are the sector of the do-gooders. There is an opportunity for us to think about what it looks like ... to influence institutions in a meaningful way." — Autumn McDonald of New America CA

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Sessions 15: Building Indigenous Power: Creating Change

In this closing keynote, Nick Tilsen of NDN Collective and Edgar Villanueva of the Schott Foundation discussed how NDN is creating new, Indigenous-led structures to dismantle white supremacy and systemic racism in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors.

“We have to move from a place of allies to a place of being accomplices. And then we have to move from accomplices to being relatives.”  — Nick Tilsen of NDN Collective

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