Learning Labs and Case Studies
Learning Lab and Case Studies
Two ways to learn from the people doing the work. Both run 65 minutes (with two bonus extended sessions). Both put you in a room with experts and colleagues.
Learning Labs are working sessions, not lectures. These start with a topic you can use — a skill to sharpen, a shift in the field to make sense of — and then you roll up your sleeves. You'll workshop it in real time. Ask questions of the expert and of each other. You leave with something you can use Monday morning.
Case Studies go narrow and deep. What someone tried, what happened, what they'd do differently. A campaign, a crisis, a launch, a lesson learned the hard way. The honest version, not the highlight reel.
Both run concurrently across Thursday, October 1 and Friday, October 2. You'll pick your own path.
Here's the thing about these rooms. Nobody has it all figured out. But someone in it has already wrestled with the exact question keeping you up at night — and they're there to share more.
Case Study
THE CONTENT CREATOR ECONOMY: THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
Stephanie Dreyer, Managing Director Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content, The Rockefeller Foundation
Sharon Machira, Founder, Studio Unconventional
Daniela Hernandez Guerrero, Managing Director Creator Partnerships, The Rockefeller Foundation
Understand why you should stop talking to the people who already know you and start reaching the people who don't.
Walk through how the Rockefeller Foundation built a creator program from the ground up — the landscape analysis that made the case internally, the framework developed for authentic partnerships, and lessons learned from early activations across four continents.
From creator immersions in Nairobi to engaging the world's #1 YouTuber, hear how one of the world's oldest foundations competes in the feeds where public trust is formed.
Learning Lab
GOODTHINK: THE NEW SCIENCE OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Damon Centola, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Unlearn the myth of groupthink and see why social influence is not the cause of conformity, polarization, and poor decision-making.
Discover the new science of "goodthink," and see how to make groups increasingly intelligent and innovative, achieving outcomes that exceed the capabilities of even their most talented members.
Learn practical principles for designing smarter organizations, better online platforms, and more effective and creative communication networks.
Learning Lab
MEANING MAKING AT WORK TODAY
Please note this workshop provides a deeper dive and will run for 2.5 hours. If you choose this session, please plan to stay for the full experience.Kristen Grimm, Founder, Spitfire Strategies
Trabian Shorters, Founder, TrabianShorters.com
Annabelle Gardner, Vice president, Spitfire Strategies
Collaborate with other participants and Spitfire’s expert communicators to dream up ways to use meaning making to cut through the noise, outsmart disinformation, and build trust and connection.
This extended workshop session will be split into two parts: proactive meaning making where you call the shots and survival tips for harmful meaning making being done to you.
Walk away with creative ideas about how your organization can partner with meaning makers – artists, comedians, content creators, musicians and more – to reach new audiences and draw attention to what matters most.
Please note this workshop provides a deeper dive and will run for 2.5 hours. If you choose this session, please plan to stay for the full experience.
Learning Lab
FROM STEREOTYPE TO STRATEGY: REFRAMING RURAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND FUNDING
Andy Mink, Founding Director, Smithsonian Rural Initiative
Crystal Good, Publisher, BlackByGod.org
Erin Cahill, Director of Communications, Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group
Janice Ikeda, Chief Executive Officer, Vibrant Hawai'i
Explore how inaccurate narratives about rural people and places influence communications, philanthropy, and public understanding.
Identify how assumptions about rural communities appear in grantmaking language, communications strategy, and visual storytelling.
Practice applying more accurate, effective communications through a live rewrite of a grant proposal excerpt and a collaborative review of campaign imagery.
Learning Lab
COMMUNICATING IN AN ERA OF MANUFACTURED NARRATIVES
Lisa Kaplan, CEO & Founder, Alethea
Learn how the information ecosystem has changed and why civil society organizations face a new category of reputational risk most monitoring tools aren't built to detect.
Understand the rise of AI-generated "slopaganda" and what it means when funders, policymakers, and reporters search your organization.
Explore how citizen journalism and coordinated campaigns are targeting nonprofit staff and leadership by name, and what the warning signs look like.
Walk away with a practical framework for building communications resilience before the next crisis hits.
CASE STUDY
CREATING MEANINGFUL NARRATIVES: THE PITT
Erica Rosenthal, Director of Research, USC Norman Lear Center
Kate Folb, Director, Hollywood, Health & Society
Julia Layman, Founder and CEO, Synchronicity Collective
Hear how the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning television series weaves societal and structural issues into authentic narratives that resonate with healthcare workers and communities alike.
Explore how entertainment-based narrative change can advance and accelerate philanthropic and nonprofit goals.
Learn best practices for maximizing the impact of entertainment-based narrative strategies, including how to engage the entertainment industry.
Learning Lab
FROM AI INSIGHT TO AI IMPACT
Claudia Deane, Executive Vice President, Pew Research Center
Monica Anderson, Director of Internet and Technology Research, Pew Research Center
Learn what Americans think about AI, including how adoption, use, and concerns are changing and what those shifts mean for reaching and understanding your audience.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at how Pew Research Center is using AI, from internal experimentation to tracking how research is discovered through AI tools.
Leave with practical questions and approaches for your own communications work, including how AI tools may be changing the way people find, understand, and trust your organization’s work.
Learning Lab
MULTIVOCAL STORYTELLING: DIFFERENCE AS NARRATIVE FUEL
Please note this workshop provides a deeper dive and will run for 2.5 hours. If you choose this session, please plan to stay for the full experience.Seanne Winslow, Senior Advisor for Entertainment, Resetting the Table
In a polarized America, even with the best intentions, stories can spark reactivity, reinforce echo chambers, or limit a project’s audience.
Developed by expert mediators from Resetting the Table in partnership with Hollywood storytellers, Multivocal Storytelling (MVS) strengthens stories and broadens reach by rendering multiple perspectives with dignity and depth and placing them in conversation.
Learn how MVS can work at any budget or altitude to tell stories that resonate across differences, whether around a boardroom table or in a mass media campaign.
This extended workshop will share core elements of MVS, examples of “dos and don’ts” from popular entertainment, and a chance to workshop applications in your own work.
Learning Lab
USING AI AS YOUR CREATIVE DESIGN PARTNER
Steve Pargett, Founder and Principal, Future Culture
Learn why all of those AI-generated flyers on Instagram look generic and how to move them from rough draft to campaign-ready.
Discover tools to create logos, graphics, and visual identities when you don’t have a design team or an agency budget.
Explore how to build simple, beautiful websites with AI, often faster than you could design the deck about them.
Leave with a prompt playbook you can put to work before you're back at your desk.
Learning Lab
THE IMPACT OF HISTORY ON NONPROFIT AND PHILANTHROPIC COMMUNICATIONS WORK
Benjamin Soskis, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute
Hear more on the various ways historical inquiry can help shape philanthropic practice, including milestone developments, trendlines, and initiatives that define contemporary U.S.-based nonprofit and philanthropic history.
The session will focus on how history can clarify (and sometimes complicate) mission, serve as a tool of evaluation, reinforce professional identity and norms, and inform communications.
Engage in a conversation about the current moment and how to understand its novelty, and continuity, in historical perspective, and why this perspective matters.
Learning Lab
PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN ON NARRATIVE CHANGE
Stefan Lanfer, Vice President of Communications, Barr Foundation
Kaye Herranen, Senior Communications Officer, Margaret Ann Cargill Philanthropies
Evan Roberts, Communications Officer, Margaret Ann Cargill Philanthropies
Shoshanna Mostoller, Director of Programs, My Dog is My Home
Adria Goodson, Director, Global Fellows, Ford Foundation
Ann Searight Christiano, Director, Center for Public Interest Communications, University of Florida
A follow-up to the Council’s 2024 research-based recommendations on how the charitable sector can tell stories that foster greater trust and understanding.
Hear more about what leading with a narrative strategy looks like from the inside–how it’s funded, how it’s staffed, and how organizational culture supports storytelling.
Gain new insights on building an ethical organizational storytelling culture.
Learning Lab
HOW PLAY CAN BREAK BARRIERS & UNLOCK COMPELLING COPY
Kristine Michie, Managing Partner, ImpactFull & Host, The PlayFull Podcast
Uncover your play style and how to use it to ignite new levels of inspiration.
Learn the 5-pillar Designed to Play creativity model and how you can bring it home to your team.
Discover the power of play to dissolve tension and build community.
Practice meditation and imagination techniques that unlock new words, ideas, and narratives.
Learning Lab
INTERNAL CALMS: A HUMAN-CENTERED APPROACH TO EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS
Ellen Griley, Founder, Equilibrious Communications
Discover how stress and uncertainty change the way people respond to communication.
Learn practical strategies drawn from neuroscience, communication theory, and trauma-informed practice.
Explore the insights researchers identified in internal communications during 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and COVID-19.
Take home a messaging framework for communicating in uncertainty, grounded in your organization's values, the moments it's weathered and won, and your people.
CASE STUDY
ADVOCACY: FREEDOM TO MARRY
Evan Wolfson, Founder, Freedom to Marry
Bryan Simmons, Communications Vice President, Arcus Foundation
Understand the distinction between a social movement and a focused advocacy campaign.
Learn more about the 5 elements that made this landmark operation successful.
Explore the methodologies of change – and the role of communications – necessary in advocacy work, including litigation, legislation, public education, direct action/protest, organizing, electoral work, and fundraising.
Learning Lab
LEADING THROUGH COMPLEXITY
Corey Criswell, Chief Leadership Officer, Adeption
Explore how leadership mindset shapes the way communicators interpret and respond to complex stakeholder challenges.
Examine how your assumptions about risk, urgency, and needs influence how you lead through uncertainty and change.
Practice reframing a current communications challenge through a broader, more systemic lens.
Identify a practical mindset shift you can use to communicate decisions, tradeoffs, or next steps more effectively that can strengthen your leadership and impact.
