Conference Planning Process

GEO’s conferences operate on a biennial cycle, where we hold our large national conference for grantmakers every other year. Years we do not hold a national conference, we offer a smaller topical conference.

About nine to 12 months before each conference, GEO issues a request for session proposals (RFP) to source sessions for the conference program. We also engage all-volunteer program and host committees, comprising members from across our community to help:

• refine the conference priorities;
• provide input on the agenda, including networking opportunities;
• curate the program by reviewing session proposals that GEO received through the RFP;
• generate and react to ideas for plenaries and other sessions; and
• evaluate the conference and offer upgrades for future events.

In selecting sessions for the program, GEO’s conference program committee typically gives priority consideration to proposals that:

• present ideas that are applicable to a diverse community of grantmakers’ work (i.e., emphasize grantmaking attitudes and practices vs. funding specific issues);
• elevate grantee/nonprofit leader and community member voices and experiences;
• are designed to allow attendees to hear from and interact with their funder peers (i.e. minimize traditional panels with no time for participant interaction; feature grantmakers who can speak from their own experiences);
• demonstrate diversity among speakers as well as the organizations they represent;
• are not case studies of single organizations; and
• offer actionable information (i.e., sessions that provide practical information and give participants ideas about how to make concrete changes in their own grantmaking).