Get ready for Nonprofit Appreciation Month in November!
Hosted by Common Good Vermont
Join us for a practical, skills-focused limited series on de-escalation in critical conversations, designed to support direct service staff in safely navigating high-emotion, high-stakes interactions.
Date/Time:
Session 1: September 16, 2026 10 – 11:15am
Session 2: September 23, 2026 10 – 11:15am
Session 1 (75 minutes) – 9/16/26
De-escalation in Critical Conversations: Staying Safe in High-Emotion Situations
In moments of heightened fear, uncertainty, and disruption—such as the current climate of increased immigration enforcement and rapid policy shifts—direct service nonprofit staff are often asked to hold space for intense emotions, deliver difficult updates, and respond when clients are scared, angry, or overwhelmed. This interactive webinar focuses on how to stay steady, safe, and effective in critical conversations with others when the stakes feel high and solutions may be limited.
Designed specifically for nonprofit staff in direct service roles, this session will focus on practical de‑escalation strategies and communication tools for navigating emotionally charged interactions. Participants will explore how to communicate clearly and compassionately, reduce escalation, and help people feel heard—even when the answer is “no,” “not yet,” or “I don’t know.”
The emphasis is on real‑world application: what to do and say in the moment, how to maintain safety, and how to respond when fear, grief, anger, or urgency are driving the conversation.
This session will cover:
Participants will leave with clear tools, shared language, and increased confidence in their ability to engage in difficult external conversations while prioritizing safety, dignity, and respect.
Audience:
Nonprofit staff in direct service roles, including frontline staff, case managers, advocates, support specialists, and supervisors.
Session 2 (75 minutes) – 9/23/26
Practices, Team Support, and Organizational Structures That Sustain Direct Service Work
In the current context of heightened immigration enforcement and ongoing social and policy uncertainty, direct service staff are carrying more than individual difficult conversations—they are operating within systems under strain, often absorbing emotional impact without clear structures to support them. This interactive session focuses on what it takes to stay grounded and safe internally while doing demanding frontline work—and how organizations and teams can share that responsibility.
Rather than framing self‑care as something staff must figure out on their own, this session emphasizes practical, collective approaches: how teams communicate across roles, how supervisors and peers can support one another in real time, and how organizations can put simple structures in place to reduce emotional overload and isolation.
Participants will explore tangible practices they can use immediately—as individuals, as teams, and within their organizations—to process difficult interactions, prevent emotional spillover, and make the work more sustainable over time.
This session will focus on:
Participants will work with realistic scenarios drawn from direct service settings and leave with concrete tools, shared language, and structural ideas they can bring back to their teams. The goal is not to eliminate difficulty, but to distribute it more fairly, so no one is carrying it alone.
Audience:
Nonprofit staff working in direct service roles, supervisors, and managers who support frontline teams, including case managers, advocates, program leads, and operations or people managers seeking practical ways to support staff sustainability.
Alliance for Nonprofit Impact members are eligible for the Common Good Vermont member rate.
Presented by Dulari Tahbildar Coaching & Consulting
Most program and people managers were never trained to design programs or manage teams — you were good at the mission-driven work, but then had to learn how to lead a team with limited time to figure out how to best meet everyone's needs without burning yourself out. This workshop is built for exactly that reality.
Build the Frame, Trust the Flow gives you a set of tools to help you design systems for your team to stay organized and aligned toward shared goals. Learn how to manage programs and people in ways that spark creativity and innovation, while unlocking real trust, flexibility, and spaciousness in your collaborative work.
After this 2-hour live Zoom session, you'll walk away with backward design principles, tools for goal-setting and role clarity, meeting structures that actually save time, and a management lens for letting go of control without losing accountability — all built specifically for the realities of fast-moving, mission-driven nonprofit teams.
After the training all participants will receive copy of the slidedeck and a Program Design & Management Workbook - a step-by-step guide for implementing the tools introduced in the workshop. Teams are highly encouraged to attend this workshop together to build a shared vocabulary and commitments for piloting new program design & management processes.
Pricing:
Presented by Stages of Freedom.
Discover the story of artist Nancy Elizabeth Prophet through a historical performance presented by Stages of Freedom. Join us at Market Place Park in Providence on September 23 at noon for an afternoon of history and live performance. This event is free and open to the public.
Presented by Nonprofit Learning Lab
The role of a group facilitator is to ensure that group members are fully able to participate, interactions among participants go smoothly, and that the group achieves its intended goal. Sometimes as a facilitator, you have to discuss difficult topics as part of a workshop, training, or facilitated experience. Elements of a facilitated experience may not always go as planned, especially if the group is discussing a difficult topic or sharing personal stories or narratives. As a facilitator, you want to be prepared for any situation and create the best possible experience for participants in a group.
This workshop will cover how to use trauma informed facilitation practices to plan, create and design. Using trauma informed principles of facilitation, we will cover the structure and format of facilitated experience, review how to create an agenda, design a facilitated experience, and how to handle disclosures, disruptions, and other facilitation challenges. This workshop is for facilitators and trainers who lead community-based conversations with adults where difficult topics may arise or in-depth discussions may occur. Participants in this workshop will learn how to better navigate situations that may arise with adult participants in a facilitated experience. Please come to this training thinking about specific gatherings, workshops, orientations or trainings where you want to integrate these approaches.
This is not a 101 level course. If you are new to this content, we advise you read this blog post: https://www.nonprofitlearninglab.org/post-1/understanding-trauma-informed-facilitation-community-conversations-as-nonprofit-leaders
Presented by Nonprofit GPS
Nonprofit leaders are increasingly seeking information about dissolution—not as a signal of widespread closures, but as part of understanding the full range of strategic options available. This session will provide a clear, practical overview of how nonprofit dissolutions work and when they may be considered. We’ll walk through the process, key requirements, and what leaders should know before exploring this path.
What You’ll Learn:
Presented by RI Humanities and the RI Historical Society
RI Humanities will be hosting a panel conversation with community partners who are working with us on our new “Revolutionary Traces” Rhode Tour. Join us for this special conversation about the ways traces of the Revolution show up in our landscape and built environments, how those commemorations shape our understanding of the period, and what they mean to us today.
Free and open to the public. Registration Required.
This initiative is part of By the People: Conversations Beyond 250, a series of community-driven programs created by humanities councils in collaboration with local partners. The initiative was developed by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. This project is also supported in part by a grant from the Rhode Island Semiquincentennial Commission (RI250).
Presented by Women's Fund RI.
Join us in celebrating our 26th anniversary! WFRI's annual gala to celebrate, connect, fundraise, and honor local businesses and community leaders, open to everyone interested in leveling the playing field for women and girls in Rhode Island! Currently seeking sponsors- reach out to Deb Honor at dhonor@wfri.org.
Presented by The Providence Eye
Tickets: $50
Live storytelling to benefit The Providence Eye bringing together local voices to share the stories behind our city’s neighborhoods, landmarks and communities. Through conversation and reflection, we’ll look closely at the people and moments that shape daily life here.
This event supports our mission to offer clear, community-focused journalism about Providence. Join us to listen, ask questions, and leave with a deeper, more grounded sense of the place we call home.
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