As part of its effort to become an anti-racist organization, Girl Scouts River Valleys is revising its volunteer policies to mitigate implicit bias and white supremacist culture. In this session, they will share their process and progress, lessons learned, and resources you can use to begin a similar journey.  

Many good-intentioned volunteers support disenfranchised communities of color without understanding the harmful effects of the white savior complex. In this session, listen and learn to adopt an antiracist framework and an inclusive practice with the community in your volunteer program and service.

Who has been invited to volunteer? Who shows up? Who feels they belong? Engaging with BIPOC communities requires ongoing attention, dedication, and the development and expansion of authentic relationships. We will discuss strategies to increase diverse volunteer representation and nurture a culture of belonging. In this session, participants will have the opportunity to outline their Volunteer Engagement Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Action Plan and obtain feedback to ensure it includes effective strategies for engaging with BIPOC communities.

Let’s face it, we are surrounded by difficult conversations! We are constantly challenged with deciding if we want to be “right” or “effective.” In this workshop, we will focus on self-awareness tools to address and disrupt judgment, microaggressions, and white supremacy cultural attitudes, while maintaining the integrity of our relationships.  

The ongoing rallying cry from people of the global majority is access and opportunity. Equity and inclusion are rapidly becoming the industry gold standard. The days of having all-white majority boards, executive staff and volunteers is prehistoric, biased and has no place in the twenty-first century. Organizations that courageously embrace this shift are actively making innovative, sweeping changes to develop an organizational culture of inclusivity. In this session, you will learn various strategies, tactics and real-life scenarios that will empower and equip you to break the mold and fuel a multicultural, multigenerational volunteer movement within your organization.

MANNA’s volunteer pool, albeit diverse, is by nature geared towards able-bodied, neurotypical folx. This session explores how MANNA forms partnerships with community organizations serving those physically or intellectually disabled. Participants will be able to use power analyses and hear from volunteers to help confront their limitations but strategize for success.

For the past two years, the Office of Community Engaged Learning at Drake University has invested time in listening to and learning from students of color about their experiences with service-learning, barriers to service, and how they would most like to engage with the community. In this session, we will share our insights from this research, implications for practice, and six strategies for taking action.

A recent study found that 50 percent of nonprofit professionals are either burned out or on the verge of burnout, a syndrome that can make it very challenging to perform at your best every day. Theories abound as to the cause of burnout, but few name white supremacy as the source. In this workshop, we’ll explore white supremacy characteristics, how they cause oppressive work environments, and what you can do about it.

While our goal may be greater diversity and inclusion in our volunteer programs, our actions may not always support that vision. Let’s reflect on the ways we -- as leaders of volunteer programs -- can discover, face and fight hidden biases in our volunteer program’s practices, procedures and policies.

Intersectionality recognizes that people are disadvantaged by multiple overlapping marginalized identities. As volunteer engagement leaders, we must consider all forms of oppression and center the voices of those affected by issues in order to build more equitable volunteer systems. But where do we start? And how do we know our efforts are making a real difference? This panel discussion brings together a diversity of thought leaders who will share their lived experiences and recommendations for putting intersectionality into practice.

Reports of Islamophobic discrimination, intimidation, bullying and harassment, threats, and violence targeting American Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim, and Islamic institutions have increased significantly since the 9/11 terror attacks. This session will introduce issues of islamophobia in Minnesota and give the tools on how to challenge and address it. Participants will leave with tips to ensuring your organization has inclusive volunteer policies.

We all know that boards should reflect the diversity of the stakeholders we engage. Yet, we continuously get stuck in the same old habits when it comes to board development and recruitment. To avoid these traps, join us for an interactive session that will help you learn how to diversify your board and reimagine their purpose.  

Antisemitism and AntiBlackness are two intertwined oppressions central to the contemporary world we live in and thus have made a tremendous impact in the world of philanthropy and volunteerism. This session will look at the 'big picture,' the violent historical shift to the economic system of today (capitalism), and how its echoes are ever-present even in the well-intentioned spaces of volunteerism.

Diversity and inclusion efforts are increasingly addressing issues of gender identity and sexual orientation, requiring education around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual identities and communities. In this workshop, we create opportunities to learn about the similarities and differences between these identities, how LGBTQIA individuals and communities are affected by stereotypes and bias, and what it means to be an ally around gender identity and sexual orientation.