The Collective Impact Forum invites you to submit a proposal to host a session at the virtual 2026 Collective Impact Action Summit on April 14-16, 2026.
Proposals can be submitted via this online form by 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, October 17, 2025.
Before you begin, please read the following information carefully.
You can also access a copy of the session submission questions so that you can plan your responses before submitting in the online form. Or review our resource on Session Submission Recommendations and what to consider for your session submission.
To make the Collective Impact Action Summit a more accessible and equitable event, we will provide complimentary registration for the full event to all Summit presenters.
Visit the Online Submission Form
Action Summit Learning Priorities
The 2026 Collective Impact Action Summit will elevate practical strategies, guidance, and examples of what it takes for communities to strengthen collaboration, advance equitable outcomes, and improve lives.
We are looking to highlight best practices, recommendations, and real-life collaborative examples that connect to six specific “practice areas” as shared in the list below. These practice areas will serve as the priorities for the Summit’s breakout sessions.
- Community Engagement
- Data and Learning
- Fundraising and Sustaining Momentum
- Narrative Change
- Policy and Advocacy
- Technology and AI to Support Collaboration
While we recognize that these six practice areas are interconnected, we ask that you choose one practice area to highlight and focus on in your session, in order to make the lessons and application specific during a limited timeframe.
It is our belief that advancing equity is part of every practice area, so we encourage you to consider how equity is centered in whichever practice area you are sharing. We define equity as fairness and justice achieved through systematically assessing disparities in opportunities, outcomes, and representation and redressing [those] disparities through targeted actions.
Content Priority Practice Areas:
Community Engagement: Listening to and acting with community (i.e., those with lived experience and their families, friends, and neighbors impacted by the initiative) to design and implement the collaborative’s work Some examples are:.
- How to engage community members to assess needs, surface root causes, and define shared priorities?
- How to build the capacity of collaborative partners to meaningfully engage with community members in goal-setting and co-designing solutions?
- How to build the capacity of community members to meaningfully engage in agenda and goal-setting and co-design and implementation?
- How to ensure accountability by gathering feedback and implementing feedback loops with community?
- How to build and share community power and co-leading with community members?
Data and Learning: Using data and research to guide strategy, support shared learning and evaluation, and strengthen equitable impact. Some session topics could include:
- How to establish a learning agenda?
- How to create a data collection and dissemination plan?
- How to use data to identify disparities and target strategies?
- How to set outcomes and identify indicators?
- How to use data for continuous improvement?
- How to weave data into storytelling?
- How to support a strong data and learning culture within the collaborative?
- How to work with equitable evaluation practices?
Fundraising and Sustaining Momentum: Ensuring long-term funding, energy and partner engagement and alignment to sustain collaborative efforts even through leadership transitions, evolving priorities and shifts in external context. Some examples include:
- How does your initiative fund and sustain collaborative infrastructure, like the backbone role and shared data systems?
- How to fundraise for a collaborative that’s over 5-10 years old?
- How to build a diversified portfolio of funding support?
- How to build fundraising capacity within your collaborative?
- How to engage funders as long-term collaborative partners?
- How does your collaborative manage through leadership transitions, turnover, and shifting external conditions without losing focus and momentum?
- What does your collaborative do to prevent burnout, sustain interest and urgency, and maintain stakeholder participation and trust over time?
Narrative Change: Influencing and changing the deeply held beliefs and assumptions that shape the stories that are told about individuals and communities, and shape public perception and reinforce systemic inequities.. Some examples are:
- How to get started doing narrative change work, and why is it important?
- How to understand what frames, narratives and stories are the most effective in shifting mental models with your direct audience, and among your staff, partners, board members or funders, and why?
- How to create and implement counter-narrative strategies to inform your audience about inaccurate or outdated narratives about your issue area and the people most affected?
- How to share real-life examples of how narrative change supported progress within your collaborative’s work?
- What are practices for elevating community storytellers and co-creating narratives?
Policy and Advocacy: How collaboratives can engage in, lead and/or support, advocacy efforts or advance policy change at the federal/state or local level. Some examples include:
- How collaboratives can participate in advocacy efforts, and what they need to consider?
- How to design and implement a policy agenda with partners and community members?
- How to design and implement advocacy strategies as a part of your collaborative work?
- How collaboratives can engage policymakers and public officials to advance change?
- How your collaborative can partner with community and grassroots advocacy to advance policy change?
- How to participate in advocacy activities while also maintaining legal compliance?
- What are real life examples of policy change that your collaborative was a part of?
Technology and AI to Support Collaboration: Exploring how to leverage technology, including data platforms, digital tools, and artificial intelligence (AI) to strengthen cross-sector work. (Please note that for technology tool sharing, resources should have a free version, and open source resources are prioritized during the review process.) Some examples include:
- How can your collaborative use shared platforms, digital workspaces, or communication tools to streamline coordination and increase transparency?
- How to use AI tools support and/or advance collaborative work?
- How to navigate the ethics of using AI, and what are the considerations collaboratives should hold?
- Real-life examples of using technology, digital tools, and AI, and the resulting impact on what impact a collaborative has experienced?
What to Uplift In Your Session?
As you prepare your session proposal, the following prompts can help you consider possible areas of focus in your presentation. (Note: You do not need to directly answer these questions, but we will look for sessions that speak to these types of reflections.)
- Based on your collaborative’s experience with this specific practice area, what lessons learned do you want to share with others?
- What’s been helpful? What’s been challenging?
- As you worked through this practice area, have you made changes along the way? What surprises have arisen as you have done your work?
- What progress and results (community or systems-level) have you seen, especially for those most affected by inequity?
- What do you recommend (or not recommend) that collaboratives take back to their community and consider for their own strategy?
Proposal Submission Information
You are invited to submit a session proposal for one of three formats listed below. If you wish to submit a topic for multiple formats, please fill out a submission form for each format desired.
1) 60-minute How-to Session: These concurrent sessions will focus on how-to “nuts and bolts” advice for collective impact leaders related to the practice area you are focusing on. The session should go beyond a general case study about the work and focus on practical lessons related to the selected practice area; maximum of 4 presenters, including moderator/session lead.
2) 60-minutes Tools and Techniques session: These concurrent sessions should connect to your specific practice area and provide attendees a chance to practice using a specific tool or technique (e.g., actor mapping, data walks, eco-cycle, liberating structures exercises, facilitation practices) that they can adapt for use in their own collective impact initiatives. All tools and techniques highlighted at the Action Summit must be available for free, rather than proprietary tools only for purchase or subscription; maximum of 2 presenters, including moderator.
3) 30-Minute “Stories of Change” Spotlight Talks sessions: These concurrent sessions should connect to your practice area while focusing on telling a specific story of change or spotlighting a specific concept that has seen progress in your work. The story or talk should demonstrate progress made on the issue. The format will be 20 minutes for the story and 10 minutes for audience Q&A; maximum of 2 presenters.
Session Date and Times: Please note that sessions will take place at various points in the agenda from Tuesday (April 14, 2026) through Thursday (April 16, 2026), between 12pm – 5pm U.S. Eastern Time (New York). We are unable to accommodate sessions during other times of day.
To submit a proposal, please complete this form by 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, October 17, 2025.
Suggestions for Submitting a Strong Session Proposal
Read below for submission suggestions, or review our Session Submission Recommendation Guide.
The Collective Impact Forum seeks session proposals that demonstrate:
Clear Session Objective, Design, and Learning Question: Clearly state learning objectives for attendees so they know what to expect. As part of your submission, be able to sum up your session’s purpose in a single learning question. (For example: How do you do XYZ? What can you learn when you do XYZ? Etc.)
Speaker composition: Your session brings together a variety of points of view and experiences on a topic. Examples of perspectives from a variety of backgrounds could include race, ethnicity, income, religion, geography, caste, disability, sexuality, gender, experience, age, education, role, etc.
Elevating Speakers from the Community: We encourage including community member voices in sessions when appropriate. We define “community members” as those with lived experience, and their families, friends, and neighbors. Session leaders are encouraged to consider providing an honorarium for community members who are speaking on their session.
Relevance of content: Your session provides practical, actionable insights for attendees who are engaging in collective impact and other forms of collaboration/coalition work. The Action Summit audience appreciates practical, real-life examples of what you’ve learned, what worked for you and your collaborative and what didn’t work, and what lessons they could take with them back to their communities. They are focused on “the How” of better collaboration.
Your collective has been active for over a year and has results to share: It’s important that your collaborative effort has results to share about how you are progressing toward your goals and that the specific practices you uplift have been implemented by the group. We will prioritize submissions from collaboratives that have been actively working for over 12 months, or started prior to November 2024. We encourage collaboratives that are not yet formally launched or have not been active for a year to consider submitting for a future Summit.
Focus on what change has happened; Don’t just share the story of your organization: We encourage you to steer away from focusing on the origin story of your organization or collaborative. Focus on the change you, your collaborative, and your community have worked towards and experienced. What has worked, what hasn’t, and what do you want to share to help others on a similar path?
Understanding the Action Summit audience: The Action Summit audience is made up of people working in collective impact and other forms of collaboration to advance social change in their communities. Most are nonprofit practitioners, joined by colleagues from public agencies, philanthropy, and other cross-sector allies. They work across a range of issues, including education, health, housing, economic mobility, and more.
What connects participants is a shared commitment to making collaboration work. They’re looking for practical strategies, and real-life examples of what it takes to build trust, align efforts, and create meaningful, measurable change. Sessions that offer concrete tools, lessons from the field, and insights into navigating challenges will resonate most with this audience.
Sharing Learnings and Not Selling Services: Sessions that focus on or have an undercurrent of selling/highlighting products or services will not be selected. This can include selling books, software, or professional services like consulting or coaching.
Geographic Reach: We are seeking proposals from both within and outside of the United States. We highly encourage practitioners from outside of the United States to submit a proposal. Please Note our time zone, and that sessions will be held each day from 12pm – 5pm Eastern (US: New York).
Please note: The Collective Impact Forum may make recommendations to selected proposals to ensure that sessions align with the proposal guidelines and requirements and meet the needs of those attending the Summit.
Additional Considerations
Comp Speaker Registration: The Collective Impact Forum will provide complimentary registration for all breakoutsession speakers to attend the three-day virtual summit. Please wait to hear back on the status of your session proposal before registering.
Key Dates
- Monday, August 18, 2025: Call for session proposals launch. (Apply for the Call for Sessions)
- Friday, October 17, 2025 (11:59 p.m. ET): All session proposals must be completed and submitted online by this date. No late submissions will be accepted.
- October-December 2025: Sessions under review.
- By December 19, 2025: Collective Impact Forum staff communicates session decisions to those who submitted.
- Friday, January 9, 2026: Final date for selected sessions to confirm their participation in the 2026 Action Summit.
- Friday, January 23, 2026: Selected session teams share final updates to their session description as part of the Summit’s public agenda launch.
- February to April 2026: Session designers and speakers refine their sessions, with support from Collective Impact Forum staff as needed.
- Tuesday, April 14 – Thursday, April 16, 2026: The Collective Impact Action Summit takes place virtually.
If you have any questions or experience technical difficulties, please contact Tracy Timmons-Gray at tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org.
