A03: Hoping for Smooth Sailing But Planning for Rough Seas
Track
Supporting Nonprofit Resilience
Session Designer
Maya Winkelstein, Open Road Alliance
Session Description
The world is unpredictable. In business, risk analysis and contingency planning guide savvy investors on whether to invest and how best to ensure success. In philanthropy, however, the question “what can go wrong?” is too often left out of the conversation between funder and grantee. The result? Risk turns into crises and many projects stall or stop. Alternatively, nonprofits push forward on insufficient resources or divert funds to the detriment of efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately impact. This dynamic eats away at nonprofit resiliency and erodes otherwise strong relationships between funders and grantees. In this session, you will learn the importance of collaborative risk mitigation and contingency planning practices. Speakers will share available tools and vocabulary to help funders and grantees evaluate risk and how to plan collaboratively to manage potential crises. Through a case study exercise, you will work in small groups to brainstorm how to craft mitigation plans and respond to emergencies, as well as practice discussing risk with your nonprofit partners without creating fear of losing funding.
Session Designers
Maya Winkelstein, Open Road Alliance
Speakers
![[photo]](https://8ca84662c5b8f0cff50d-4baaaf97d63fd7b01243e1b1c57f0cc1.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/1020/profile_1181bdbc60dd840139daf87c459bcb96.png "Maya Winkelstein, Open Road Alliance")
Maya Winkelstein, Open Road Alliance
Biography
Maya Winkelstein is Executive Director of Open Road Alliance. As Executive Director, she is responsible for the organization's overall investment strategy including finding new ways to deploy capital to achieve maximum social returns. Winkelstein has worked with Open Road since the organization's inception in 2012, as a consultant and then Executive Director. Prior to Open Road, Winkelstein was an Associate Director with the consulting firm, williamsworks, where she worked with clients including Eastern Congo Initiative, Nike Foundation, PATH, Tostan, and TOMS Shoes. Former affiliations also include The Corporate Council on Africa, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Institute of National Strategic Studies (INSS) at National Defense University (NDU) and, Exclusive Analysis Ltd.
![[photo]](https://8ca84662c5b8f0cff50d-4baaaf97d63fd7b01243e1b1c57f0cc1.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/1069/profile_39993811da102fcb62dcc5c88e508c71.png "Laurie Michaels, Open Road Alliance")
Laurie Michaels, Open Road Alliance
Biography
Laurie Michaels, Ph.D. is an individual philanthropist and Founder of Open Road Alliance. Michaels is an advocate for change in the philanthropic sector, and seeks to create a dialogue about trisk management and contingency planning between donors and NGOs. She is a regular contributor to the Chronicle of Philanthropy and a guest speaker at forums such as Fail Forward, Clinton Global Initiative, and WA Women’s Foundation. Michaels currently serves on the Board of Directors for PATH and Search for Common Ground. Michaels also served on the board of the Aspen Community Foundation for 12 years and had been Board Chair for four years ending in 2013. During that time, she oversaw a collective impact initiative in the greater Roaring Fork Valley.
![[photo]](https://8ca84662c5b8f0cff50d-4baaaf97d63fd7b01243e1b1c57f0cc1.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/1101/profile_8ace61d76d456588dd0925bc7a4a55d1.png "Cristi Hegranes, Global Press Institute")
Cristi Hegranes, Global Press Institute
Biography
Cristi Hegranes is the Founder and Executive Director of Global Press Institute (GPI) and the Publisher and Executive Editor of Global Press Journal (GPJ). A 2013 Ashoka Fellow, Cristi is an experienced social entrepreneur, a media innovation pioneer, and a renowned international journalism trainer. GPI is an award-winning, high-impact social venture that uses journalism as a development tool to educate, employ, and empower women in developing media markets to produce professional local news coverage that elevates global awareness and catalyzes social change. Recognized for developing a high-quality, sustainable model of international journalism that is rooted in the perspective of local communities, Cristi has received many awards including, the Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize, the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Society of Professional Journalists Journalism Innovation Prize, a New Media Web Award, a Clarion Award for Investigative Journalism, and a Lifestyle Journalism Prize.