2025 National Convening

The Annual Convening features a blend of national thought leaders and local practitioners, all focused on improving education outcomes, economic well-being, and quality of life.  All sessions are focused on equipping attendees with exemplars, case studies, tools, frameworks, and other resources that can be used in their own work.

Schedule

The convening begins on Tuesday, December 2 with optional pre-day institutes from 12:30p-4:00p ET.   A welcome reception will begin at 4:30p for those arriving and those participating in the pre-day institutes.

The main event begins Wednesday, December 3 at 9:00a ET.

The convening concludes on Friday, December 5 at 12:00p ET.

Mainstage Presentations

Keynote speakers from the fields of economics, design, education, and systems redesign will take to the stage to share the latest insights and innovative work from across the country.  The following presentation list will be updated as speakers are confirmed.

Dr. Andre Perry:  Andre M. Perry is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Community Uplift at the Brookings Institution. He is also a professor of practice of economics at Washington University of St. Louis. A nationally known and respected commentator on race, structural inequality, and education, Perry is the author of “Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It,” (Henry Holt April 2025). In 2020 Brooking Press published “Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities.”

Eureka People: Eureka People serves as President of Housing Kent, an effort to dissolve homelessness, increase affordable housing, and eliminate the shocking racial disparities in the housing system in Kent County, Michigan. Prior to this position, Eureka spent 10 years as Principal Consultant of her own strategy and facilitation consultancy specializing in systems change for nonprofits, foundations, and government. In this capacity, she developed strategies for a foundation initiative, facilitated the design of a school district’s nationally recognized attendance campaign and strategic plan, facilitated a nonprofit’s community development project, and facilitated another nonprofit’s board of trustees leadership experience program, among other projects.  She then guided the Housing Stability Alliance network to the building of a roadmap to address housing inequities and racial disparities. It was this that led to her being asked to apply to lead further housing efforts here in Kent County.

Breakout Sessions

The National Convening hosts long-form breakout sessions featuring the work underway in communities across America.  These sessions are organized into four themes:

Hard Lessons: Partnerships across the United States are testing new ways of working…and not all of them work out.  These sessions are all about sharing the hard lessons learned by practitioners and leaders working the space of talent, collaboration, and systems change.

Getting It Done: The real power in gathering a large network of leaders and practitioners is the opportunity to R&D (“rob and duplicate”) tools, processes, resources, and frameworks from other successful partnerships.  These breakout sessions focus entirely on the use of data tools, collaborative processes, equity frameworks, and other tangible tools that can be immediately used upon returning home.

Design Labs: Design labs introduce tools, frameworks, and other resources, giving people an opportunity to interact with new materials that may aid their efforts.  A portion of these sessions should be dedicated to giving attendees time to use a tool, learn from one another, and explore its application to their own work.

Partnership Features and National Partners: These sessions give partnerships and national partners an opportunity to feature work in action.  Features include successful programs, work in progress, completed research, or opportunities for attendees to engage in national programs.

Pre-Day Institutes

All attendees are encouraged to attend one of two optional pre-day institutes.  These pre-day institutes take place on Tuesday, December 2 from 12:30p – 4:00p  and provide attendees a deep-dive opportunity on specific topics.

Pre-day institutes are offered as a discounted add-on to the registration cost – $75 by the early bird deadline; $100 after the early bird deadline.

Institute 1: Building Collaborative Measurement Plans:  Collective impact partnerships and similar collaboratives are often organized around a set of cradle-to-career outcomes that, by and large, have referenceable measurement approaches. As the field has evolved, however, measuring outcomes such as social mobility and overall performance of the collaborative have become more needed and more challenging. This pre-session will create space for collaboratives for learn how partnerships in multiple geographies have made progress on these challenges and provide time for facilitated measurement planning for your collaborative. The session will also build in time for peer learning so that all are benefiting from the time together.  (Note that those registering for the session will receive a brief survey before the session to help cater the content to your needs.)

This session will be presented by Pranav Kothari of Revolution Impact.

Pranav Kothari is the Founder & CEO of Revolution Impact, LLC. Headquartered in Chicago and founded in 2016, the firm focuses on helping social sector organizations improve their results through better business practices and organizational strategies. Current and past clients include operating nonprofits, foundations, corporate giving programs/ foundations, family offices, school districts, and higher education institutions.

Pranav is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Public Action and Social Compact Program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, teaching both MBA and executive education courses on the education sector, social sector performance measurement, continuous improvement, and board governance.

Institute 2: The Think and Feel of Social Change

How do we make what’s invisible visible? How do we shift from merely understanding social problems to feeling the need for change, and then acting on it?

In this immersive workshop, we explore how transformative social change begins not only with data and analysis but with the experiences that move hearts and change minds. Participants will learn to use striking images to make systems visible and show meaningful differences. Then, we’ll go further: designing engaging experiences that invite people to interact with those systems in ways that create awareness, dialogue, disruption, and ultimately, possibility.

Through real-world examples that span the breadth of data analysis, design, and the visual arts, you’ll learn to:

• Illuminate the hidden forces shaping your community
• Design powerful visualizations and maps that provoke understanding
• Craft interactive experiences that shift perspective and awaken new responses
• Move from detached analysis to embodied engagement and participation

This workshop is ideal for community leaders, backbone organizations, collective impact initiatives, policymakers, and anyone working to make change in complex systems. By the end, you’ll leave with a toolkit of methods that reveal reality, foster participation, and build microcosms of what a better world can feel like. Because sometimes, as the film director Stanley Kubrick once said, “the truth of the thing is not so much in the think of it, but in the feel of it.”

This session is provided by the team at CivicLab, led by President and co-founder Jack Hess.  Prior to his co-founding of CivicLab, he was the President of the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce where he set in place an aggressive strategy of building on the power of place, increasing member engagement, and promoting the principles of entrepreneurship and innovation. Within three years of implementing its new strategic plan, theAmerican Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) presented the ColumbusChamber with the National Chamber of the Year Award. While at the Chamber, he helped to champion a number of collaborative projects including the state-of-the-art Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence, the formation of a regional learning system through Economic Opportunities 2015, an online training academy for entrepreneurs called SmallBizU, and the Indiana University Center for Art+Design.

It’s Not All Work

Come for the content and stay for the company!  The convening will provide several opportunities for teams to gather for their own end of year retreat, connect with other attendees over a happy hour, and even a special event or two.  When CivicLab polled its network on their desires for this convening, connecting with other leaders and practitioners was the number one request.  The 2025 convening will deliver on that request and allow you to connect with other like-minded people from around the country.

Attendees and teams will have evenings free to explore all that Savannah has to offer.  From an active restaurant scene, live music, and ghost tours, your time in Savannah will be well spent.

We partnered with The Hyatt Regency Hotel in Savannah, GA this year for our attendees to relax, enjoy the convening, and connect with other attendees! Please book your hotel by using the link below for the Annual Convening group rate. The last day to book a hotel room is Monday, November 10, 2025.

Book Your Hotel Room

Sponsorship allows CivicLab to keep registration costs low for attendees, opening access to those who are usually unable to attend costly national conferences.

The 2024 Convening is generously supported by Troy Street Professional Services and the Shasta College Attainment and Innovation Lab for Equity.

Those interested in becoming a sponsor can download the sponsorship packet or sign up today.  Contact Dakota Pawlicki at dpawlicki@civiclab.org for more information.

For registration support, contact CivicLab@executivevents.com.

For questions about sponsorship, the agenda, or the content of the Annual Convening, contact Dakota Pawlicki at dpawlicki@civiclab.org.

For all other questions, contact Megan Langdon at mlangdon@civiclab.org.