Guest post by Peter Drury, development director, Splash

Is "impact" simply quantifying your efforts to report to donors -- or is impact something far more? This is the question posed in the Impact Master Class session, fielded by Ellen Alberding, president of The Joyce Foundation, Jeff Edmondson, managing director of the Strive Network, John Van Camp, president of Southwest Solutions, and John Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises.

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Guest post by Malik S. Nevels, J.D., Executive Director, Illinois African American Coalition for Prevention

Are you changing the game? How do you balance organizational legacy with the need to grow, adapt, and transform? What organizations are effectively tackling issues big enough to matter yet small enough to change? When is it ok to fail? 

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Guest post by Caroline McAndrews, Director of Research & Documentation, Building Movement Project

Figuring out what data to collect, how to collect it, and how to make sense of it in order to build impact was the theme of the 90-second poster presentations from discussion leaders at the Data 360 session. In her opening, Fay Twersky of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation touched on one of the biggest challenges in the room – not just collecting information, but engaging others in using and analyzing it, and ultimately employing it to make better decisions.

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Guest post by Mark Turner, Director of Public Policy, Colorado Nonprofit Association

Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation at the White House, started off the session by expressing his appreciation for presenting at the IS Public Policy Action Institute immediately following the election. He said that his office wants to be a partner with the social sector.  

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By Térèse Coudreaut, Human Resources Director, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The session, facilitated by James Weinberg, founder and CEO of Commongood Careers, covered the topic of turnover and what it means, both positive and negative, for our organizations. Panelists included Don Aguilar, vice president of human resources at Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Rafael Lopez, associate director for talent and leadership development at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and James Siegal, executive vice president and COO for KaBOOM!

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