Video: 2025 Just Economy Conference Call for Sessions

Online Event Archive Recorded: August 15, 2024

Transcript:

NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.

Speaker 1 0:00
Hey, all, we're going to go ahead and get started here. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about ncrcs call for sessions for the just economy conference. I will be pausing throughout to answer some questions, and then we'll also have some time for questions at the end. But yes, please go ahead. Thank you, Doris for getting us started. Go ahead and introduce yourselves in the chat. Everyone is muted, but feel free to put questions in the chat, and again, we'll hit those as we go along this session, as are all of NCRC events, both virtual in person, is subject to NCRC code of conduct. Feel free to check that out and hold each other accountable to that, although I think this one will be fairly smooth sailing. Just a little bit about NCRC before we get started talking about the conference, NCRC is a network of over 700 organizations dedicated to making a just economy a national priority and a local reality. We work with our members to close the racial and socioeconomic wealth and opportunity divides. We do that by organizing agreements between financial institutions and our members to increase lending, investments in philanthropy and neighborhoods that need it. We advocate for policies that encourage the just use of capital. We hold institutions accountable for discrimination in financial services and housing and housing. We empower entrepreneurs and community organizations with grants, loans, technical assistance and training, and we invest in in and around low and moderate income neighborhoods to increase home ownership. In partnership with community organizations and municipalities as well as lenders, investors and developers, we produce agenda setting research and stories, and we convene events that bring stakeholders together to advance equitable solutions. And that last one is exactly what we're here to talk about today, one of the most exciting ways that we bring people together to advance a just economy is through the just economy conference, and that is the largest National Convening, where we have folks From the financial industry, from communities all coming together around a just economy. We have over 1000 folks who come from across the country. I'm going to share a couple of slides, really quick to talk a little bit about who tends to come to the conference. I'll share these afterwards, because it's quite the list. Let me just make sure I was just saying before this that I continue to struggle on a Mac figuring out how to share slides well, so bear with me

Unknown Speaker 2:54
as I do that. So

Speaker 1 2:59
the just economy audience includes NCRC members and prospective members, which are community based, regional and national nonprofit organizations, state or local government departments and agencies and educational institutions. And you can see kind of, you know, this is not all inclusive, but these are some of the different types of of institutions that we're talking about when we are talking about when we are talking about NCRC members, advocacy and organizing groups, local and state government leaders, CDFIs, businesses, developed organizations, affordable housing developers, fair housing, fair lending, civil rights organizations, community leaders, faith Based Organizations, financial literacy and capacity building organizations, neighborhood stabilization, community revitalization groups, community development corporations. And then we also attracted the just economy conference, a large number of financial services professionals, including CRA Community Development compliance, government affairs and Community Affairs staff from banks a variety of different sizes and focuses. The conference also attracts fintechs, impact investors and those working to move capital in non traditional ways with an eye towards economic equity and opportunity for underserved populations. We attract academics, foundations and federal government, professionals and policymakers committed to creating vibrant communities and building wealth for low and moderate income communities. We also attract students and young professionals who are learning what it means to lead in this field and exploring their pathways. And then we attract business, nonprofit, Faith and Faith and philanthropic leaders and informed, empowered individuals everywhere committed to imagining and creating a just economy, really and truly. I think that the thing that people end up being most excited about at our conference is the diversity of folks who are all coming together around this common cause of a. Just economy. And that is exactly the audience that we want y'all to be thinking about as you think about proposing sessions for the just economy conference. Just a little bit about kind of the nuts and bolts of the conference. Our conference is two days of programming. It is preceded by a hill day for our NCRC organizational members to go up to Capitol Hill, and then again, two, two full days of programming that are a mix of plenary conversations on a main stage and what we call breakout sessions, which are either 75 minutes or 30 minute sessions. And those are really those breakout sessions. Is what we're here to talk about today. Those are also what I think of as the meat of our conference. Is the reason why folks make a decision to get on a plane and get to DC to come to the conference. I do want to say it one more time that we do have two different length sessions that we have at our conference. Those of you who are experienced attendees of the just economy conference may remember or maybe aware that last year we piloted something called lightning sessions. We got a lot of good feedback that folks enjoyed, having some briefer conversations to participate in. This year, we're actually opening it up and allowing folks to kind of tell us whether they think that the session that they're presenting fits better in a 75 minute time frame or a 30 minute time frame. 30 minutes does include audience Q and A, so really, they're designed to be more like TED Talk link, one big idea with some time for audience to ask questions afterwards. Another format shift that we're experimenting with our conference is all in person. It is not a hybrid event. However, NCRC, as a national organization throughout the year, offers a lot of virtual content, and it's very common for us, as we develop the content for our conference, to realize that there's additional conversations that we want to have that may or may not be the best fit for our conference, and so we're giving folks an opportunity when you're proposing sessions, if you think that there might also be an opportunity to do a virtual session, either instead of or in addition to the session that you're proposing at the just for the For the just economy conference. We're asking you to share that now. It doesn't necessarily tie you into anything. It's not that we're going to say, oh, you know, they say they're willing to do this as a virtual session. We're not going to consider them for the just economy conference, but just a little bit of extra information for us as we, you know, continue to think about that. And just one thing that I'll share in terms of how I think about the difference between offering programming at the conference versus virtually at the conference. You have 1000 people, 1000 plus people in person, who have traveled there, who are really very invested in the type of work that we do together as a coalition, and that is a really exciting and engaged audience. That's really exciting. It is also one that has some barriers. When we offer a session, virtually nobody has to fly. They're usually free at NCRC, and sometimes you can get a broader audience, particularly if you're looking for a particular type of audience. At the just economy conference, we really look for intersectionality. We want programming that is attractive to a CDFI and housing developer and an advocate and a FinTech all in one room together, right? That's, that's really what we're looking for. When we do something virtually, we can be a little bit more segmented and targeted about who our audience is. So that's, you know, just something to think and keep in mind. We've also absolutely done a strategy in the past where we have one session at the conference and then do a follow up later on that's virtual and a little bit more targeted. We actually have one of those happening this week at the 2024 just economy conference. We did a session on special purpose credit programs that was really geared towards the entire just economy conference, and this week, we're offering a follow up session that is a little bit more geared specifically to CDFIs. So that's definitely a format that we think about and really try to match what the what the purpose and the goals of a session are with the the right type of audience. Sorry, that was a little bit. Much about that, but just for things that are new, for newer for us, I want to make sure to spend a little bit of time on that. I'm going to pause there and check for questions here. So feel free to put questions in in the chat here about the just economy conference, or those, those newer formats. And then next I'm going to talk about some of the the topics that we're

Unknown Speaker 10:23
really looking for.

Speaker 1 10:34
I see a great question. Yes, there was a question about whether we will continue the trend of putting some of proposed sessions out for a vote. We will be doing that. We don't put all of the sessions that are proposed up for a vote, but over the last couple years, we started sharing in advance some of the top sessions that we're considering, and letting ncrcs broader network weigh in on what they would be really excited about seeing at the just economy conference. So it's really fun and and folks are definitely encouraged to leverage their networks and juice the vote. Get out the vote. So look for that in late November, after another very important voting exercise in our country.

Unknown Speaker 11:26
Yep, all right, so let me talk a little bit about

Speaker 1 11:30
what type of topics we're looking for. The just economy pledge is a framework that we continue to use to think about what type of content makes sense for the just economy conference. We'll share a link to that here, and you can also find that linked in the in the link for the landing page for the call for sessions. But this is a set of principles that really kind of, you know, we consider to be the foundation of the work towards a just economy. There are a few areas that we're hoping we'll find some particularly competitive proposals around this year, including climate change and environmental justice, workforce development, affordable housing. But I'll also say that we frequently are a little bit surprised each year to see what trends emerge through this process. I kind of consider it to be a little bit of a listening process for NCRC as an organization, for us to hear from our constituents what what feels really important to them in a particular year. But we are, you know, if you think about NCR C's mission to make a just economy a national priority in a local reality, that really is the type of content that we're looking for. I mentioned before that we're looking for intersectionality, thinking about what's going to get those kind of unusual partners in a room together and excited to collaborate together, and so that could be a local strategy that's really gaining some traction, that you're excited to share with a national audience. It could be a policy initiative, but we're looking for unique collaborations around

Unknown Speaker 13:18
economic justice. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 13:22
So that is a little bit about

Speaker 1 13:26
the type of content that we're looking for. And I would be remiss if I didn't spend some real time on how to think about speakers for your sessions. We do ask that you share the speakers that you have in mind when you propose a session. They don't necessarily need to have this blocked off on their calendar, but what we find is that the speakers really make or break the conversation. And so we want to know what you're thinking about for that, and we want you to think about that through a diversity lens, we say yes to sessions that have racial, gender and geographic diversity among their speakers, as well as a diversity of perspectives. So you know, when I say diversity perspectives, it might mean including both a practitioner and an advocate, a funder and a community leader, someone from one sector in another sector, one state and another state, someone who's working on an issue from at a local level and a national level. That kind of diversity for us is usually a good indicator that there's going to be a robust conversation and that a number of our different audience segments are going to be able to see themselves and have practical takeaways from the conversation that you're convening. We're also looking to see if the speakers that you're proposing know more about the topic than the audience. What. Practical experience do they have? Are their experiences replicable in other settings? The just economy conference really does attract folks that are leading in their various spaces. So the conversations that we want to convene, we want to think of as leading leaders, and so your speakers need to be able to to speak to that right. Also want you to think a little bit about how realistic the speakers are that you're proposing. Again, we don't expect this to be marked on everybody's calendars and their plane tickets booked, but want to make sure that those are folks that you have a relationship with that you'd be comfortable reaching out to that you've got a plan for how to talk to them about the session that you're proposing and that you've got some ideas about, you know, what you would do if, you know, somebody was on sabbatical or had something else that they really couldn't make it? What's, what's your backup plan? You know, I've spoken a lot about the diversity that we look for in sessions. I do also want to just acknowledge the fact that 75 minutes is not a lot of time. And so while we are looking for diversity among speakers, we're also looking to make sure that we max out at about three speakers and a moderator. If you feel really, really strongly that the session that you have in mind needs more voices than that, we're looking for a very, very strong plan and some realism about the fact that that means that your speakers are going to have less air time. We really don't want people to travel to DC to speak and then get crowded out because

Unknown Speaker 16:43
there were too many voices and not enough time.

Speaker 1 16:46
And related to that, we also encourage folks to think about a really strong moderator that not only has the subject matter expertise on the topic, but also the ability to facilitate, to move a conversation along to politely interrupt, to mind the time and the conversation, to make sure the audience is engaged and has time to ask questions. You can have a really, really dynamic presentation and dialog amongst your speakers, but if NCR sees audience doesn't get a chance to ask their questions, we'll hear about it afterwards. I promise they really are our folks come ready to engage and want to want to make sure that they've got time to engage. Yeah. And then, just a really practical note, want you to be aware that while speakers and session leads and the session leads are the folks like you who are proposing content and then shepherding it through. Those folks get complimentary access to the full conference, but we do not, as a practice, offer hotel or travel stipend or honorarium. We do have a separate scholarship process to ensure that leaders in areas where we are investing as an organization, in communities that otherwise may not have the resources to get to a conference like this, can do so, but those resources are pretty limited, and so we really encourage folks to think about speakers who can find a way to get here on their own, and we'll find value in being here for the rest of the conference. I tend to find that the folks who speak at our conference are also leaders within the movement, and we really would love to have their full participation, if at all possible. So let me pause there, now that I've talked to you a lot about speakers, and I will take another scan for questions really quick. You you.

Speaker 1 18:48
I'm seeing a lot of great introductions. I'm actually not seeing too many questions, so that's great. Um, yeah, let me talk a little bit about our process. Um, so if you head to the the conference website, which I'm hoping Chloe, do you mind putting that in the chat, just to make sure folks can see it, and click Submit proposal right, right there, you'll have an opportunity to either create an account, or, if you're like me, tell the Cvent platform that no, of course, you don't remember what your username and password is, and please send me the things. Let me create a new password. Just make sure that you use an email address to create an account that you actually check, because we will communicate with you about your proposal via that email and then check once you submit your proposal, to make sure that you get the confirmation email and then it's not going to spam, because if the confirmation email goes to spam, then when we reach out to talk to you about your proposal, that will probably also go to spam. So that's pretty important. Um. Them, yep. And then, as I mentioned before, part of our timeline includes an opportunity for our audiences to vote on sessions that will happen in November, and that'll be right around the time when we are finalizing our decisions. Our goal is to have sessions published in December.

Unknown Speaker 20:25
Sometimes we get thrown some curve balls,

Speaker 1 20:30
you may so some of some of those decisions will be just a quick yes, you're in or I'm so sorry we're not able to do that this year. But please, you know, come back and talk to us again next year. I do want to just be upfront about the fact that sometimes we come back to you with more questions about your sessions or suggestions of things that we think could make it a little bit of a better fit for our particular purposes. And so, you know, we try, we try to be really thoughtful about making sure that you're able to accomplish what you want to accomplish in that session, but also, again, thinking about the intersectionality and the diversity of the audience needs at the just economy conference. So look for those type of emails in the in the fall, once you get the green light from us that a session is approved, then you'll start really confirming your speakers. You'll finalize the description. You might write the description one way now when you're pitching it to us, but then thinking about how you would pitch it to a broader audience might be a little bit nuanced, or Once you finalize your speakers, right? Because, again, those speakers really make or break. And so as things shift around, just making sure that the description is what you actually want us to use to talk about your session.

Unknown Speaker 21:55
And yeah,

Speaker 1 21:58
I will say one thing to that I'm excited about right now, all your questions can come to me. I'll share my email address. Starting this fall, I will have an additional staff person who session leads will start to work with and who will answer some some of those questions with me. So I'll be excited to have a little bit more staffing. In the meantime, be patient. I promise. Patient. I promise. I'll I try really hard, even in the thick of conference season, to not let more than a week go by without getting back to folks. But sometimes I've got a batch it, and I see a great question about submitting more than one session for consideration, and the answer is yes, and I there is a little bit of an asterisk. We do try really hard not to have more than one session from one person or institution. We try to be mindful of not overexposing a speaker in in multiple sessions, although occasionally it's unavoidable, but submitting more than one session can sometimes increase the odds that one of those will get through, because we just don't always know going in, are we going to get more sessions that are really squarely focused on how AI is impacting credit scores. One year we might get like 10 of those. The next year we might get like one of them. And so yeah, just you're welcome to diversify your proposals and share a few different ones, and then we can kind of mix and match and Yeah, might have some hard sometimes we have some hard decisions between those, but yeah,

Unknown Speaker 23:47
that could be really helpful. All right,

Unknown Speaker 23:53
I'm going to pause again for questions here.

Unknown Speaker 24:01
Let's see.

Speaker 1 24:12
And I think the very last thing on my list is just to reshare the the timeline here, so let me pull that up so I can put that in here while folks Think about their last, last handful of of questions. I

Unknown Speaker 24:55
All right, and one last thing that I will share, I.

Speaker 1 25:01
Uh, in in the vein of things that are new this year, can you tell that we're constantly trying to evolve our conference a little bit here? One thing that we are really excited about this year is that, for the first time, we have an official program committee. You can see the members of that committee on the conference website right now, and I'm very excited about that. You know, for years, we've kind of informally been tapping in CRCS network, sharing around some of the sessions that we're most excited about or that we have questions about, to get input from folks. But this is the first time that we've really had an open process where we've invited people to apply and formally agree ahead of time to review sessions, instead of getting an email from me and saying, Hey, could you take a look at these and give me your input? So I'm I'm very excited about that and very grateful for the folks who are participating in that. I think that's going to be really helpful and provide them really good insight. That committee is very representative of a lot a number of the different segments at NCR C's audience, and so they bring different different eyes to that content, and will be really helpful. All right,

Speaker 1 26:22
this is a great question, will there be space for research or poster presentations, or could that be submitted for a 30 minute session? I think that's actually a really great, a great fit for those 30 minute sessions, if you think about something that's very visual, and then a very brief presentation, and then time for folks to engage and ask questions. I think that's a great, great fit. We don't actually have a a ton of exhibit space in the in the space that the conference is in, but this, yeah, that would be a great fit for for that type of format. So, yeah, I now,

Speaker 1 27:08
Ruben, your question about the NCRC audience? I know I named kind of like some professional fields, but just to give a little bit more color to the audience that we see there, I would say, thinking across some of the common themes and characteristics. So as I said, these are folks who are leading in their spaces. They tend to be. I very strong in their kind of, you know, their particular field of economic justice, whether that's a CDFI or a small business technical provider, financial literacy work or, you know, someone on the edge of some of the hottest FinTech issues, policy expert, etc, and they are coming here because they're interested in connecting not just with other folks in that field, but across sectors interested in in unique collaborations. And yeah, it's a passionate group. It's there. I find that our folks who come to the Justin comedy conference are very direct. They are going to push they're going to take your great idea and they want to kick it hard enough to know if it's going to know if it's going to it's something that they can make work for them. They're curious, feisty. Yeah, so those are some, I think, a little bit more emotive words than you know, here's the type of sectors, but just if that helps create kind of a vibe of what you're going to see in an audience.

Unknown Speaker 29:04
Yeah, I think that's that's probably

Speaker 1 29:07
maybe helpful to help think about who's going to be there. This is a great question Doris has about the number of speakers. I would say that the lightning sessions are a great place for one or two speakers. What I have found is that it's challenging for us to get enough diversity of perspective and to be attractive across multiple sectors with one speaker in a breakout session. It is possible. I've also seen some very strong sessions that are two speakers having kind of a pointed dialog, almost a little bit of a debate, with some with very different perspectives, but two speakers that you know. Coming are talking about, you know, the same thing or the same angle, probably would not be as strong for the 75 minute session. It could be very strong for the shorter 30 minute sessions, which, again, are a little bit more of a TED Talk. One big idea. But for the 75 minute sessions, we're looking for, yeah, a little bit more of a conversation, you know, with Yeah, just a number of different angles to it, yeah,

Speaker 1 30:31
yeah. Vanessa, I will take as many proposals as you want to submit. I will not cap you. So if you're sitting on a treasure trove of ideas, we will look at them all. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 31:04
all right,

Speaker 1 31:05
I'm seeing the questions come, coming a little bit to a slower role. Here again, I'm available for questions. I'm also the other thing that I'll offer if you do have a number of different sessions that you're kind of going and we could go in this direction, or we could go in that direction, we could talk about this idea for this audience or for that audience. I'm happy to help you brainstorm about that a little bit, and so you feel free to reach out to me with those, those types of questions as well. And I'm going to go ahead and put my email address here in the chat. All right, wonderful. Well, I thank you all very, very much for your time today. Yeah, the folks who take the time to make these to submit these proposals, I just am incredibly grateful to y'all really are what makes our conference so compelling. Yeah, and I'm really looking forward to reading them and being able to share them amongst the program committee. We always learn a lot in this time of year, and just find it invaluable. So thank you. Appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 32:18
Vanessa, that's a great request I

Unknown Speaker 32:22
don't have it at the tip of my fingers right now,

Speaker 1 32:26
but when I share the recording and the follow up notes to everyone who registered for this, I'll make sure that we include a link to the 2024 conference program. Because you're right. I do think that that gives a really good sense of the type of content that we're looking for.

Unknown Speaker 32:45
Oh, seeing more questions here.

Speaker 1 32:55
Charlie, your question about responsibilities, besides suggesting the session the speakers and the moderator. I, I really think of the folks who are proposing these sessions as being kind of captains of that session. So you're, you're the point person. We count on you to do the planning and the work to get your speakers on the same page, to execute the vision that you had. So, you know, I talked about as like, it's the minimum of a prep call. And then folks who have been through this a few times kind of laugh in the background. They're like, yeah, one prep call. Good luck with that. But I think it just depends on on your style and your speaker's style, but really making sure that your speakers know what you're trying to accomplish, what they're bringing to the table, what their talking points are, organizing the slides that work. We really look to the session leads to do that. We'll, we'll do, you know, make sure that folks know what room they're in and what's you know, what the timeframe is, but yeah, you're, you're in charge of executing the vision. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 34:05
And then one more thing related to that, sorry,

Speaker 1 34:07
if that we were over. And then that was just a really good question. You know, things do happen, and the original speakers sometimes have to back out. And so then we do kind of think of that as kind of collaborative between the session lead and NCRC. A lot of times the session lead will have some good thoughts right off the bat of what to you know, where to pivot, but at that point, we do ask that come back to us to just make sure that the pivot still works, and that that isn't someone who's already doing another role at the conference and that type of thing. So yeah, and again, keeping an eye to diversity, I find that replacing speakers is sometimes where we end up losing diversity, because we thought about a lot up front, and then we panic and go to to Yeah, forget to ask that question as we're as we're filling in those. Slots, yeah, all right, yeah, all right, I'm going to call it here, but thank you guys so much, and we'll be in touch over email.

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