AFP Advancement Northwest’s 2026 Annual Conference,

“Philanthropy That Endures: Leading Through Rapid Change”

AFP Advancement Northwest Annual Conference is the Pacific Northwest’s premier professional development event for fundraising professionals, offering a transformative day of learning and community building.

Designed for development professionals at every career stage—from emerging fundraisers to seasoned executives—the event features a dynamic keynote with writer/speaker Vu Le, multiple concurrent session tracks, and an inspiring closing session. Attendees gain practical insights into the industry’s most pressing topics, including intergenerational giving, ethical AI in fundraising, and community-centered philanthropy, all while connecting with a powerful network dedicated to creating lasting social impact.

Vu Le and Hong Chhuor share a conversation about philanthropy, trends, and the frustrations of fundraisers.

Session One: “Context & Framing”

THEME 1: Innovation in Philanthropy and What’s Emerging Now

Session 1.1: Context & Market Reality

Title: “2026 Philanthropic Reality Check for Nonprofits: A Dive into Economic and Philanthropic Data”

Presenters: Anthony Petchel: Consultant / Instructor & Deborah Steinkopf, Consultant / Instructor @ Nonprofit Financial Leadership Academy

Nonprofit leaders are hearing a lot of mixed messages right now: fewer donors giving more, donor advised funds growing rapidly, events that cost more while netting less, and foundations and corporations shifting priorities. At the same time, inflation, housing costs, and political and tax uncertainty are shaping how everyday donors make decisions about giving. Nonprofits need a clear reality check and a practical way to translate the data into strategy, not more noise.

This workshop offers an accessible briefing on key 2026 economic and philanthropic trends, including current Giving USA and Fundraising Effectiveness Project data, donor advised funds, foundation and corporate giving, and event fundraising. We will also highlight what these trends mean across generations, from long time donors to emerging Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z supporters, and how those segments are showing up in pipelines and portfolios.

THEME 2: Intergenerational Giving and Future Donor Pipeline

Session 1.2: Grounding / Pipeline Foundations

Title: “Next Generation Donors: A Path Through Planned Giving Stewardship”

Presenters: Sarah Szabo, CFRE, CSPG, CAP: Director, Planned Giving @ Swedish Foundation, Christy Cheever: Senior Director of Philanthropy @ Swedish Foundation, Mallory Higgins: Philanthropy Director @ Swedish Foundation, & Alyssa Slyter, MNM, Associate Project Manager @ Swedish Foundation 

There is a commonly held belief in fundraising that a bequest donation must be disliked by heirs because it is taking money away from them, so engaging heirs in planned giving stewardship before or after their parents’ passing is unthinkable. While at the same time, we are learning that those very same Millennial and Gen Z heirs are more value-driven and participatory with their philanthropy than any generation before them. 

This session will delve into a case study that explores how planned giving, major gifts, and program teams collaborated to steward the families of realized estate donors through a tribute project, which introduced the organization and the impact of parents’ philanthropy to their children and larger families for the first time.

Participants will leave this session with a new lens to look at the stewardship tools they already have in their organizations that, when utilized collaboratively, can create opportunities for next-generation engagement. 

THEME 3: People First Fundraising and Relationship Wellness

Session 1.3: Sustainable Performance

Title: “Onward & Upward – Thriving As A Fundraiser”

Presenter: Troy P. Coalman: Chief Impact Officer @ Uplift Northwest

In the nonprofit sector, success is too often measured solely in revenue—without regard for the human being behind the results. Fundraisers carry significant emotional labor, build long-term donor relationships, and navigate frequent rejection, all while managing ambitious goals and constant deadlines. The result is an unsustainable culture where burnout is normalized and talented professionals leave the field just as their impact deepens.

Onward & Upward: Thriving as a Fundraiser is a practical, affirming seminar designed for fundraisers, development leaders, and nonprofit executives who want to sustain both performance and well-being. This session reframes fundraising success through a sustainable lens, demonstrating how fundraisers who protect their energy, establish good self-care practices, and work within supportive systems are more effective—and more fulfilled.

Participants will explore how burnout directly undermines donor stewardship, creativity, listening skills, and retention. The seminar challenges pervasive sector myths such as “if I slow down, revenue will suffer” and “rest comes after the campaign,” replacing them with sustainable practices that recognize how the profession can thrive, not just survive. 

Attendees will gain realistic strategies tailored specifically to fundraising work, including daily micro-practices for energy management, weekly reflection habits, and organizational approaches that protect people while advancing results.

The session also addresses healthy emotional boundaries, helping fundraisers separate self-worth from outcomes, reframe “no” as information rather than rejection, and reconnect with purpose without over-identifying with results. The goal is for participants to leave the seminar with tools they can implement to thrive—not just survive.

Because while successful fundraisers meet goals, thriving fundraisers build legacies.

THEME 4: Volunteers and the New Landscape of Corporate Giving

Session 1.4: Funding Landscape & Grant Trends

Title: “Grantseeking Trend Watch: Emerging Trends Shaping the Future of Funding”

Presenter: Devon Jackson: Enterprise Account Executive @ Instrumentl

The grant landscape is shifting—fast. Funders are changing how they give, AI is disrupting how we write, and competition for dollars is increasing. How can nonprofits, especially health and human service organizations, stay ahead?

This session draws from the experiences of over 4,000 nonprofits, universities, and healthcare systems to reveal what’s actually working in 2026. Attendees will explore the most pressing trends shaping the funding landscape—from shifts in private grantmaker behavior and federal priorities, to how grant professionals are navigating the rapid rise of AI-assisted workflows.

We’ll break down five key best practices organizations are using today to future-proof their grant strategies and strengthen their long-term fundraising capacity. These include both quick operational wins (like enhancing prospecting strategy and improving proposal workflows) and more systemic shifts (like adapting team structure and realigning funder communication approaches).

The session will blend trend analysis with field-tested stories from nonprofits navigating these challenges in real time—offering both inspiration and practical, replicable strategies. By the end, participants will leave with actionable insights to refine their grantseeking efforts and confidently adapt to the evolving funding landscape.

Designed with adult learning in mind, this session balances insight, interactivity, and tangible takeaways. A downloadable worksheet and time for live discussion ensure that participants can immediately apply the insights to their own organization’s grant process.

Session Two: “Practical/ Tactical/ Execution”

THEME 1: Innovation in Philanthropy and What’s Emerging Now

Session 2.1: Tactical Campaign Execution

Title: “You’re it: Thriving as a New One-Person Philanthropy Team”

Presenter: Jess Henderson: Development Manager @ BARN (Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network)

New to fundraising, and the only one doing it at your organization? This session is designed for career-changers navigating their first philanthropy role.  Learn how to develop systems, utilize key tools, build internal buy-in, and embrace fundraising with confidence – even if it feels overwhelming right now. Through practical tips, shared experiences, and peer connection, you’ll leave with a clearer sense of direction, useful tools, and a plan for how to not only survive, but thrive in your new role! 

Through this session, participants will: 

1. Learn how to prioritize (or create) the key components of a fundraising plan for an organization with one paid fundraising staff person. 
2. Identify tools & systems that can save time and reduce overwhelm. 
3. Gain strategies for building internal relationships and becoming a trusted voice in fundraising for their organization. 
4. Leave with an action plan to help them navigate their next steps with clarity and confidence. 
5. Feel less alone after spending time with others who are in the same boat as you are!  

THEME 2: Intergenerational Giving and Future Donor Pipeline

Session 2.2: Values-Led Leadership

Title: “Humanity-Centered Innovation: Leading Ethical Change in a Rapidly Shifting Philanthropic Landscape”

Presenter: Sean Goode: Founder & Leadership Coach @ Movement Makers

Philanthropy is changing faster than many organizations can metabolize. New tools, platforms, data systems, and expectations promise efficiency and scale — yet many fundraisers and leaders are experiencing increased burnout, erosion of trust, and a growing disconnect between values and practice.

This session invites participants to pause beneath the surface of innovation and ask a critical question: How do we lead change that actually endures?

Rather than focusing on specific tools or technologies, this participatory lecture centers a humanity-first framework for navigating innovation in philanthropy. Participants will explore how ethical discernment, relational trust, and organizational presence must accompany emerging practices such as AI, data-driven decision-making, and new giving models for innovation to be sustainable.

Drawing from real-world experience across nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and organizational coaching, this session reframes innovation not as a race to keep up, but as a practice of alignment — between mission and method, values and systems, people and progress.

Attendees will examine common innovation traps, including performative adoption, mission drift, and extraction-driven efficiency, and will be guided through reflective practices that help leaders assess when innovation serves their work — and when it quietly undermines it.

This session is especially relevant for leaders navigating rapid change, cross-generational expectations, and the pressure to adopt “what’s next” without losing what matters most. Participants will leave with a grounded lens for evaluating emerging tools, centering equity and dignity, and leading innovation that strengthens trust rather than eroding it.

THEME 3: People First Fundraising and Relationship Wellness

Session 2.3: Leadership & Culture

Title: “People First Is Not Soft Leadership: Managing Burnout, Performance and Change”

Presenter: Josalyn Ford: Chief Advancement Officer @ Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle

Your best major gifts officer just gave notice. Your board wants to launch a campaign. Your team is exhausted. And you’re supposed to “take care of your people” while hitting aggressive revenue goals.

As fundraising organizations navigate rapid change—economic uncertainty, shifting donor expectations, increased accountability, and ongoing workforce fatigue—leaders are being asked to do what often feels contradictory: care deeply for their people while still delivering results. Too often, “people-first” leadership is mischaracterized as soft, permissive, or incompatible with performance.

This session reframes people-first leadership as a strategic, disciplined approach that strengthens fundraising outcomes rather than weakening them. Drawing from 20 years of executive leadership experience managing teams of up to 15 people, this session explores how fundraisers can lead through burnout, change fatigue, and complexity without sacrificing clarity, accountability, or impact.

Participants will examine how people-first leadership shows up in practical ways: restructuring Q4 expectations when a key team member experiences a crisis, advocating to your ED for campaign timelines that account for actual staff capacity, maintaining performance standards during organizational transitions, and creating cultures where both people and philanthropy endure. Rather than focusing on abstract wellness concepts, this session centers actionable leadership practices that fundraisers can implement immediately—regardless of organization size or budget.

This session is designed for fundraisers who manage people, projects, or portfolios and are navigating constant change while trying to sustain themselves and their teams. Participants will leave with concrete tools, decision-making frameworks, and language they can use with staff, peers, and senior leadership to lead with both care and rigor.

THEME 4: Volunteers and the New Landscape of Corporate Giving

Session 2.4: Systems Thinking & Power Dynamics

Title: “Community-Centric Fundraising Isn’t a Dropdown Field: What Our Systems Teach Us About Power and Participation”

Presenter: Jennifer Li Dotson, MSc, CAP: Strategic Advisor @ AI in Fundraising

Community-Centric Fundraising is a movement rooted in equity, justice, and shared abundance, but the systems we rely on every day in our philanthropic work can either bring those values to life or unintentionally undermine them. Behind every campaign, report query, and dashboard lies a power dynamic that determines whose generosity is recognized, whose time is valued, and whose relationship to the organization is elevated or erased. 

This session endeavors to examine how data practices, CRM structures, AI powered automation, and digital tools shape outcomes long before a fundraiser ever makes an ask. Participants will interrogate common practices such as donor segmentation, engagement scoring, and gift attribution through a lens rooted in transparency, belonging, and collective benefit. 

Grounded in real-world DevOps scenarios and practitioner experience, this participatory session moves beyond surface-level efficiency toward values-aligned systems design. Attendees will explore how to reduce extractive labor without reducing people to anonymous data points, and how to build operational practices that honor consent, context, and care. 

Through guided reflection, small-group sense-making, and practical tools, participants will leave with concrete strategies to utilize systems in alignment with CCF principles, reclaiming data as a source of justice, strengthening participation, and nurturing collective power across any organization, role, or platform. 

This session is not about picking the “best” software. It is an invitation to see data as a partner to build community, uphold justice, and advance equity.

Session Three: “Real World Application”

THEME 1: Innovation in Philanthropy and What’s Emerging Now 

Session 3.1: Practical Future Readiness (Small & Mid Orgs)

Title: “A Realistic Take on Fundraising’s New Frontier: how small and mid-sized nonprofits can navigate the future of fundraising”

Presenter: Brittany Kirk: Fundraiser & Consultant & Rebecca Andrew Zanatta: President of RJZ Connections, Inc. and Consultant with Cloudbreak Collective

We are in a momentous– and sometimes scary– time of change in the philanthropic sector. This is even more true for small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations where resources are scarcer, teams are smaller, and uncertainty feels more earth-shaking.

In this session, we will highlight three powerful forces that are pushing fundraising into a new frontier:

As Boomers age and Gens Z and Alpha come of age, great transfers of wealth and generational differences are changing the ways people give,

Dramatic swings in public policy and the availability of government funding at all levels are transforming the assumptions we can make about funding stability, and 

Exponential growth in the capacities of AI and other technologies is shaking the foundations of fundraising processes and capabilities. 

These three forces are ushering in a new era of fundraising in which we may need to fundamentally rethink how we spend our time and energy as fundraisers. This participatory lecture will synthesize findings from national and regional research studies, as well as case studies from our work with 100+ nonprofits each year, to identify the effects of these three forces on real-world fundraising in small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations. 

Together with attendees, we will propose potential paths forward in key areas of fundraising–like boards, major donors, grants, campaigns, etc.– which recognize the transformational effects of these three driving forces. We will provide honest and candid assessments of the viability of traditional fundraising methods in light of these three forces, and we will introduce new ways of thinking about fundraising to match our new realities. 

By the end of our time together, we will guide attendees towards a recommitment to hope and possibility, even in spite of the ambiguity and stress of this moment. We will call on attendees to draw upon the pioneering spirit and innovative nature that have always guided scrappy, resource-strapped organizations, reminding them that the sector has always and will continue to be the driver of inspirational change in hard times.

THEME 2: Intergenerational Giving and Future Donor Pipeline

Session 3.2: Donor Behavior & Trust

Title: “You’re Already Using AI. Your Donors Already have Opinions. Now What?”

Presenter: Keith Daly: Senior Philanthropy Advisor, Major and Planned Gifts @ San Francisco AIDS Foundation

Nonprofits have a reputation for being last to adopt new technology. The reality is different: the AI Equity Project’s 2025 survey of 850+ nonprofits found that 80% are already using AI — but only 9% feel ready to use it responsibly. Your CRM scores donors with predictive algorithms. Your email platform optimizes send times with machine learning. Your prospect research tool ranks wealth indicators using AI models. None of that happened through a strategic decision — it arrived through vendor updates and staff experiments. The question isn’t whether to adopt AI. It’s whether you’re being intentional about it, and whether your donors trust how you’re using it.

This interactive workshop bridges that gap between accidental adoption and deliberate strategy. Drawing on the 2025 “Donor Perceptions of AI” study — a national survey of 1,031 verified donors by Cherian Koshy and Nathan Chappell — participants will learn where donors see value, where they draw hard lines, and how to build practices that honor both.

The donor data is nuanced. Sixty-one percent believe AI can enhance fundraising. But 92% demand transparency, two-thirds cite data privacy as their top concern, and 32% would give less to a charity using AI — more than double the 14% who’d give more. Donors aren’t anti-technology. They’re anti-opacity.

The workshop moves through three hands-on modules. First, we ground the room in reality: what AI is already embedded in nonprofit platforms, what donors expect, and why the gap between the two creates risk. This includes a candid look at confidentiality: when a staff member pastes donor notes into a free AI chatbot, that data may be used to train the model. No consent. No encryption. No policy governing it.

Second, participants map their organization’s AI exposure using a donor-trust matrix built from the study’s data. You’ll inventory the AI you’re already using — including tools you haven’t recognized as AI-driven — and plot each against donor comfort levels. Back-office uses, like impact measurement, score 54% approval; front-line uses like AI-generated solicitations score below neutral. That gap shapes your implementation sequence.

Third, we close the gap. Participants begin drafting two documents: an internal AI use policy adapted from the NTEN AI Policy Template — think of it as a gift acceptance policy for technology — and a donor-facing transparency statement built to specifications from the research. Seventy-three percent want a plain-language explanation on your website. Sixty-three percent want human-review assurances. Fifty-two percent want opt-out options.

Throughout, we’ll explore real-world examples of how AI earns its place — not by replacing relationships, but by clearing the path to them. When prospect research that took three hours takes fifteen minutes, when acknowledgment drafts generate in seconds for human editing, when pipeline analysis surfaces upgrade-ready donors — that’s time returned to the connections that drive giving. This isn’t an ethics lecture, a tech demo, or a sales pitch. It’s a practical workshop for fundraisers who want to use AI intentionally, transparently, and in service of the human connections that make philanthropy endure.

THEME 3: People First Fundraising and Relationship Wellness

Session 3.3: Skills for Daily Practice, Data POV

Title: “The Rejection-Resilient MGO: Skills, Scripts, and Early Wins That Prevent Burnout“

Presenter: Mary Petersen: Founder, Author, Podcast Host @ Hey Fundraiser!

Major gift work can be deeply meaningful and also emotionally exhausting. When fundraisers don’t have a clear, repeatable approach to “the ask,” every solicitation can feel high-stakes, personal, and risky. Add a few “no’s” (or even a few awkward maybes), and confidence can drop fast. Over time, that erosion shows up as avoidance, over-preparing, missed opportunities, and burnout…costing organizations revenue and fundraisers their joy in the work.

This interactive workshop is designed to protect fundraiser wellbeing by strengthening the skills that create early wins and sustainable confidence. Participants will learn a practical, people-first framework for planning and delivering asks that feel clear, respectful, and collaborative without pressure tactics or performative bravado. We’ll normalize rejection as a predictable part of the work and practice tools to separate personal worth from solicitation outcomes.

Through guided exercises, participants will:

• Diagnose what makes asking feel scary (and what actually fixes it)
• Build a simple “Ask Plan” they can reuse immediately
• Practice language that creates clarity, consent, and next steps
• Learn how to respond to “no,” “not now,” and “we need to think” without spiraling or stalling
• Identify the “early wins” that build momentum and reduce emotional fatigue

Participants will leave with scripts, checklists, and a rehearsal process they can bring back to their teams to improve performance, retention, and results. Because when fundraisers feel equipped—and cared for—they build stronger relationships, stay in the profession longer, and raise more money for the communities they serve.

THEME 4: Volunteers and the New Landscape of Corporate Giving

Session 3.4: Alignment & Partnership Design

Title: “From Boardroom to Breakroom: Expanding Volunteer Leadership in Fundraising“

Presenter: Kate Roosevelt: Co-President @ Campbell & Company

Fundraising leadership is no longer limited to the boardroom. 

In today’s evolving corporate giving landscape, nonprofits are being challenged to rethink who they engage as volunteer leaders—and how. This session will explore how fundraising (and campaign) leadership models are expanding beyond the traditional board structure to include ad hoc working groups, task- and skills-based engagement, and multi-person campaign co-chair roles. 

Drawing from experiences across a range of organizations that are growing their fundraising capacity, we will examine how staff leaders can meet volunteers where they are to develop new donor relationships, maintain momentum during a multi-year campaign, and help companies meet their corporate engagement goals.

Participants will leave with practical insights on how to identify, recruit, and support volunteers whose skills, networks, and corporate affiliations align with today’s philanthropic opportunities—helping organizations adapt to a new era of corporate engagement while strengthening fundraising outcomes.

Session Four: “Reflective/ Forward-looking”

THEME 1: Innovation in Philanthropy and What’s Emerging Now

Session 4.1: Future-Focused Innovation

Title: “Human-Centric AI: Reclaiming Fundraiser Time for What Actually Matters.“

Presenter: Kristi Nelson, CFRE, MBA: For Impact | The Suddes Group

This session begins with a confession: AI comes with real costs – environmental, economic, and human. We raise this not to talk you out of these tools, but because fundraisers, of all people, understand that how we get somewhere matters as much as getting there. This session invites you to make that choice with your eyes open.

The stakes are real. Organizations will adopt AI – that’s inevitable. But without intentional frameworks, we risk accelerating the transactional hamster wheel instead of escaping it: faster churn, eroded donor trust through clumsy automation, and talented fundraisers leaving because they’re managing technology instead of building relationships.

This session offers an alternative path. We introduce a humanity-centric framework we call “the human layer”: AI handles the administrative tasks; humans handle the relationships. Technology serves values rather than compromising them.

You’ll see it in action. Watch 3-hour prospect research shrink to 15 minutes. See personalized thank-you drafts generated at scale – then see why the human edit makes all the difference. Discover how grant discovery can run continuously in the background, surfacing opportunities you’d never find manually. Learn how automated workflows can eliminate redundant tasks – data entry, report generation, follow-up scheduling – so your team stops doing the same work twice.

You’ll leave with three practical tools:

• The Human Layer Assessment – a decision framework that categorizes any fundraising task as automate it, AI assists/human leads, or never automate.
• A time recovery calculator – map your own week during the session and pinpoint where AI could give you 5-15 hours back.
• A Prompt Starter Kit with ready-to-use prompts across several areas of fundraising work, so you can put AI to work before the week is out – and know how to refine, iterate, and curate every output with a critical human eye.

This isn’t about becoming an AI expert. It’s about reclaiming time for the work that brought you to fundraising: connecting with people and helping them make a meaningful impact.

No technical background required – just honest questions about how AI fits into fundraising that honors relationships. The future isn’t humans versus machines. It’s humans freed from admin, finally able to build the donor relationships that create lasting impact.

THEME 2: Intergenerational Giving and Future Donor Pipeline

Session 4.2: Community-Centered Growth

Title: “From Scarcity to Solidarity: Engaging Supporters & Growing Revenue Through Values-Centered Fundraising in a Time of Federal Cuts“

Presenter: Rehana Lanewala: Director of Development & Communications & Danielle New: Annual Giving Manager @ FamilyWorks

As federal funding cuts to nonprofits and public benefits strain our social safety net, nonprofits are being asked to do more with less, while the communities we serve face rising needs and deepening inequities. At a time when many nonprofits are forced to scale back programs or are at risk of closing completely due to funding cuts, how can organizations respond with urgency without abandoning their values, overburdening staff, or relying on scarcity-based messaging?

This session will share practical, values-aligned strategies for growing revenue and deepening donor engagement during times of crisis that are grounded in the real-world experience of FamilyWorks, a Seattle nonprofit that partners with families furthest from economic, food, and racial justice to alleviate food insecurity and ensure access to the resources and support needed to overcome systemic barriers to equity, build stable communities, and thrive.

Amid federal funding cuts and surging demand in 2025, FamilyWorks increased donations, volunteerism, and community support by leaning into its values, deepening relationships, communicating transparently, and centering the voices of the families we serve. Last year, FamilyWorks achieved a 63% donor retention rate, a 22% increase in total revenue, a 31% increase in individual giving under $1,000, and a 79% increase in major giving ($1,000+), demonstrating that values-driven strategies can produce measurable results even in times of crisis.

This presentation will offer a roadmap for mobilizing generosity without perpetuating harm. Attendees will hear what worked, what didn’t, and how these lessons can be adapted to different organizational contexts. Participants will leave with practical insights into engaging supporters through shared values, communicating transparently about challenges while uplifting community strengths, diversifying revenue streams, and inviting donors and volunteers into partnership, advocacy, and systems change.

At a time when federal cuts threaten the stability of essential services, the nonprofit sector has an opportunity to reimagine fundraising not as a scramble for scarce resources, but as a practice rooted in solidarity, transparency, and shared responsibility. This presentation will equip participants to meet the moment, grow revenue, engage donors, and strengthen community resilience without compromising their mission or values.

THEME 3: People First Fundraising and Relationship Wellness

Session 4.3: Reflection & Renewal

Title: “From Burnout to Belonging: A NeuroArts Approach to People-First Fundraising“

Presenter: Heidi Marsh Stayboldt, Founder @ sanctuaryandtable.com & Antonio Melendez, Multi-disciplinary Impact Artist and Speaker

Across the Pacific Northwest, nonprofit leaders are naming a consistent story: growing service demand, funding uncertainty, and staff burnout. In recent listening sessions, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust identified staff burnout as a persistent sector-wide challenge, with leaders reporting strain on teams even as community needs increase. This strain is not only operational — it is relational. When capacity is depleted, fundraising shifts from mutual engagement to survival mode. Donor relationships thin. Internal trust erodes. Managing up becomes reactive rather than strategic. Change fatigue compounds.

If fundraising is fundamentally relational work, then relationship wellness must be treated as organizational infrastructure.

This interactive workshop offers a “show, then tell” NeuroArts experience demonstrating how music and tactile art-making can support nervous system regulation, reflective capacity, and relational attunement — protective factors against burnout and fragmentation. Participants will first engage in a guided live music and creative practice experience designed to shift stress physiology and increase connection. We then translate the experience into accessible neuroscience, drawing on research synthesized in the WHO’s global review of arts and health (which analyzed over 900 publications and found strong evidence linking arts engagement to improved mental health, stress reduction, and social cohesion) and emerging work in neuroaesthetics and arts-based wellbeing, including findings popularized in Your Brain on Art.

From there, we move into application.

Participants will learn how arts-based practices can strengthen:

1. Internal Team Culture & Sustainable Workloads

 Simple, repeatable creative rituals can regulate stress responses, increase psychological safety, and support diverse, multi-generational teams navigating change fatigue. When leaders model reflective practice, “managing up” shifts from pressure management to clarity and alignment.

2. Donor & Corporate Relationships

 Experiential gatherings rooted in shared creative engagement foster emotional connection, which research consistently links to retention and long-term loyalty. When donors feel seen, regulated, and meaningfully engaged, stewardship becomes reciprocal rather than extractive — strengthening both corporate and community partnerships.

3. Community & Cross-Sector Partnerships

 Music and art serve as neutral relational bridges across difference. In complex organizational ecosystems, creative practice can build trust faster than transactional meetings alone.

Participants will leave with a practical 90-day implementation framework to pilot arts-based relational wellness practices in three arenas: staff retreats, donor cultivation events, and community partnership initiatives. The session includes simple evaluation tools to measure perceived stress, connection, and alignment shifts.

THEME 4: Volunteers and the New Landscape of Corporate Giving 

Session 4.4: Behavior & Motivation

Title: “Moving from ‘I Gotta Do This’ Volunteers to ‘I Wanna Do This’ Donors

Presenters: Elaine Banter, CVA: Community Engagement Manager @ The Seattle Aquarium & Jennifer Li Dotson, MSc, CAP: Strategic Advisor @ AI in Fundraising

Let’s be honest: Most corporate volunteer days are just ” required work hours” in itchy t-shirts. Employees grumble because HR mandated a day of service to impress shareholders, and nonprofits grit their teeth through the controlled chaos, praying a fat check follows the cleanup. Here is the cold, hard truth: In 2026, transactional “sweat equity” is a failing strategy for everyone involved.

If your engagement strategy feels like a series of one-off blurry photo ops, then you are leaving money on the table. Individual donors who volunteer give 10 times more annually than those who don’t. Yet, many nonprofits treat corporate groups like obligatory free labor rather than the highest-potential touchpoint in their donor pipeline.

In this high-energy, humor-filled, and slightly provocative session, Elaine Banter and Jennifer Li Dotson will bridge the gap between volunteer management and strategic development. We’re moving beyond fluffy theory to provide a tactical roadmap for converting that “I gotta do this” energy into an “I want to invest” commitment. 

You’ll walk through a real-world case study highlighting how a food bank activated more than 250 corporate volunteers across a 13-county region in a single day of service – an effort that led to significant gifts, values-aligned sponsorships, and lasting partnerships. We’ll also touch on timely considerations shaping corporate decision-making, including scalable volunteer management practices.

Come prepared to laugh, roll your eyes, challenge the status quo, and finally crack the code on corporate giving.

 Closing Keynote: 4:30 PM – 5:00 PM (Main Hall)

Closing Keynote: Candid, community-led development, enduring systems

Title: Executive Leadership for the Next Generation – Why Shared Leadership Will Sustain Your Organization

Presenters: Jamie Lee & Jared Jonson, Co-Executive Directors @ Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda) 

Jamie Lee and Jared Jonson are the Co-Executive Directors of the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda).  SCIDpda has been around for 51 years – it’s leadership shifting from a singular Executive Director to two EDs leading the way.  In a time where the Chinatown ID is seeing rapid change – both opportunities and threats – these Co-EDs believe their strategy of shared leadership ensures that SCIDpda can serve the community in a multi-faceted way, while also centering staff and setting the organization up for financial viability.  

CFRE Credits

CFRE tracking is self-reporting. You are required to keep track of your own attendance. You can login to your CFRE account or start your application online. AFP Advancement Northwest is a pre-approved CFRE provider for continuing education points. Please follow the CFRE guidelines regarding continuing education reporting.

Young Professional Members

There will be a limited number of discounted $160 registrations available to support the participation of AFP Young Professional Members. Current Advancement Northwest Chapter membership is required, learn more about membership here. Young professional chapter members can email office@afpadvancementnw.org to request a registration discount code.

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Thank you to our 2026 Sponsors who help keep events like this affordable for our community.