Online Event Archive Recorded: June 21, 2025
During this webinar you will learn how to apply for a conference proposal and content areas that are important priorities for the upcoming year.
What conversations do you want to lead? What new ideas can you bring to the table to help us imagine and create a just economy? Whose voices do you want to include and showcase? Have an idea for a session, panel, or discussion? Submit your idea by July 25.
Speakers:
Caitie Rountree, Director of Membership & Events, NCRC
Haley Schneider, Conference & Events Specialist, NCRC
Transcript:
NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.
Rountree 0:08
Well, thank you all for joining us for the info session on the Just Economy Conference Call for Sessions. I know next spring feels like a long ways away, but I’m grateful that y’all are thinking about it, the next year with us now. We are going to go ahead and talk through a number of different things here related to this call for sessions, but first I wanted to go over a few little housekeeping things. First of all, I’m Caitie Rountree. I’m the director of membership and events, and my colleague Haley Schneider is here as well. You’ll be hearing more from Haley later. Haley is our conference and events specialist.
We’re going to talk a little bit about who NCRC is, what the Just Economy Conference is, who comes to the Just Economy Conference, what kind of content we’re looking for, what the different types of content formats we’re looking for, some of the logistics and how to apply. And then we’ll have some time at the end to cover some frequently asked questions and let you ask some questions as well. Oh, and thanks y’all for flagging that the chat is disabled. I thought it was a little surprising that folks weren’t jumping in there. Haley, if you can, I don’t know if that’s something that we can fix while we’re live here, but love for folks to be able to see who else is a part of this conversation. Yeah.
So NCRC is a network of organizations and individuals dedicated to creating a nation that not only promises but delivers opportunities for all Americans to build wealth and live well. We do that through a variety of ways. We work with community leaders, policy-makers and institutions to advance solutions and build the will to address America’s persistent racial and wealth inequality. We work to strengthen low-wealth communities, including people of color and low- and moderate-income people. We train support and represent community organizations, building a capable and powerful member coalition. We advance equitable opportunities to build community and personal wealth through access to credit, capital, careers, investment and ownership. We advise, incubate and invest in enterprises that expand economic mobility and strengthen communities of historic disinvestment. We organize, investigate and hold accountable public and private institutions to address community needs. And our research, media and advocacy, inform local leaders, policymakers and the private sector on how to make a just economy a national priority and a local reality.
So the Just Economy Conference is actually a really key part of how we do that work. We have over 1,200 attendees from across the country, and we’re going to talk in more detail about who those folks are. But my very big shorthand for that is the folks who come to the Just Economy (conference) are the people who want to be around the table making an economy that works for everyone, right? So there’s a lot of folks who are working towards that big goal in a variety of ways. And there’s a place for them at the table at the Just Economy Conference. We’ve been holding this conference for over 30 years. It’s a two-day conference packed with both breakout sessions, which is what we’ll be primarily talking about here, as well as networking opportunities, main stage programming, plenty of opportunities to network. I like to say that we spend a lot of time putting together great content for this event, but the real value that people find in the event is through the peers, the other leaders that they’re able to connect to there. That’s really the value of this event. And the content that you all work to put together is really part of creating that atmosphere and sparking those conversations. So it’s a packed time, but a really good one.
If we can keep moving through here, I’m not going to go through every single line in the next couple of slides. We’ll share these around afterwards so that you can refer to them. But just want to talk broadly about who, who you should be keeping in mind as you’re thinking about the content that you’re proposing for the Just Economy Conference, our members and prospective members are really the core audience, and make up about two-thirds of the attendees. These are community-based, regional and national nonprofit organizations. They’re state and local governments and educational institutions, all working again towards a just economy in a variety of ways. A lot of practitioners are here, learning from each other, and from those who have interesting ideas, new, emerging research or innovative pilots that they want to take home and actually apply to their communities, that boots on the ground work. We also have a very significant portion of our conference that’s made up of the financial services industry; financial institutions, and there’s some detail here, the types of staff that we see coming from banks, mortgage lenders, FinTech folks who may be coming here from compliance roles in those institutions, some that are community facing, some that are actually doing the lending and the portfolio management. And those folks are again coming both to connect with their peers in the financial industry and also to connect with community leaders and other types of partners for their institutions. We also attract academics, foundations and federal government, students and young professionals. We have a very vibrant young professional reception and lots of ways for folks who are early in their careers to really make some valuable connections across the country. And then business, nonprofit, faith and philanthropic leaders as well. Yeah, so that is a little bit about who comes.
In terms of the content priorities, the Just Economy Conference really is about intersectionality. There’s a lot of threads in the tapestry of a healthy, robust, just economy, and so we actually really love content that teases those intersections out and that reflects the realities that we can’t have a just economy without environmental justice. We can’t have affordable housing without wages that meet people’s basic needs. So we’re very interested in those type of intersections. And I will also say, we look for a mix of content across these different areas that you can see on this slide. Ssome of our content will be very practitioner-based, again, pilots that people are doing that are really successful, that could be copied and emulated in other communities. Some of it’s going to be more research looking at the big picture of trends that can inform people and help them understand the context of their own work and their own community. Some of the content is going to be policy-focused, whether that’s federal, state or local.
And we are, you know, a number of our communities right now are particularly struggling with things like loss of federal funding, changing political landscapes, and so we are definitely looking for content that is reflective of those emerging realities and forward-looking, so that there’s a very strong emphasis on that as we look ahead to 2026.
All right, I’m going to talk about the different formats for our breakout sessions, and then I’m going to turn it over to Haley to talk about some of the nuts and bolts here. So we have two different types of of breakout sessions at our conference. Our lightning sessions are really fun impactful. They’re a bit like a TED talk. So the idea here is that one or two people would talk for somewhere between 1015 minutes about one big idea, one really dynamic solution to a thorny problem, new emerging content, and then give some time for audience Q and A. This is really great. We’ve got a very content-heavy conference, and being able to offer folks something that matches today’s attention span, we found that this is really popular with our audiences. They love these lightning sessions. The other type of breakout session that we have are more standard sessions. They’re an hour and 15 minutes in length. They’re two to three speakers with a moderator, and again, we want some time for robust conversation audience, and Q and A. For these sessions, we’re really looking for diversity of perspectives, and so being really thoughtful about the speakers that you. Propose here, and the different lens that they’re going to look at the issue that you’re addressing in your session is really, really important, whether that’s talking about area of policy from both a local perspective and a national perspective, a practitioner and a advocate talking about the different sides of the same issue. We’re not opposed to some lively debate. If you have a session that you want to pit experts with very different views on a topic, we love that. We think that’s really engaging for audiences and forces them to think harder than you would if everybody’s singing from the same hymnal there, right? So that’s a little bit of the difference between those two different sessions. And now I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Haley for some nuts and bolts here.
Schneider 11:05
Hello, everybody, as Caitie mentioned, my name is Haley Schneider, and I am the conference and event specialist on our team. So I’m going to talk a little bit more about some logistics here on how to actually apply and what it looks like to participate in this process. So our conference is annual, as Caitie mentioned, this upcoming year is going to be in April of 2026 held at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. So that’s thinking forward and now talking right now, if you’re interested in applying the proposal deadline is July 25 of this year, so almost exactly a month away, so enough time for you to start scheming and get your speakers in line. And then we’re going to review all the proposals, and then you will hear back in around October of this year.
So a little bit more on exactly how to apply. If you go to ncrc.org/conference, it’ll bring you to our beautiful website where you can click Submit Proposal, and it’ll take you to a screen that looks like this, with this little pink down here in the left that says 2026 Just Economy Conference Call for Sessions, and you’re going to hit that submit proposal button, and it’s going to take you to create an account. And if you’ve submitted a proposal with us before and you already have an account, that’s awesome. You can go ahead and type that information if you remember. And so after you get your account all set up, that’s where the nuts and bolts of actually submitting the proposal happen. I just wanted to provide some screenshots so you can get a feel of what it’s like. We’d like to think that the process is easy. Please give feedback if needed, but you’re just going to put your personal information, write a clear session, title, description. There are some character limits in there so be sure to check those out before you type a beautiful novel. And we’re going to ask questions like: What is your target audience? Who are you trying to reach? Which of those two sessions do you feel like your format is more: lightning, 30 minutes or 75 minutes an hour and a half? And then we’re going to ask you about potential speakers. So you will see in this question, we included race, ethnicity and as well as gender identity. And the reason that we do that is because the attendees coming to our conference are very diverse, and so we want our speakers to reflect what our attendees are coming in as. So it also just improves the discussion. It’s just richer as Caitie said, our conference is known for its intersectionality, and so bringing as many diverse perspectives and background as possible really contributes to that robust conversation. So that is the reasoning that we ask that.
All right, and after you finish that last screen, you are good to go, adding all of your speakers. You just click that submit button and we’re ready to review. So that’s the logistics, how to apply. We wanted to throw in some frequently asked questions that we’ve heard from you all before, before we get into our actual Q and A which, if some questions are starting to come to your mind, go ahead and go to that bottom tab, and you’ll see a Q and A button. And you can go ahead and type that in there, and Caitie and I will answer those shortly. Okay, so frequently asked question number one: Can you submit more than one session proposal? Absolutely. Throw your name into the hat as many times as you feel like you have a conversation worth sharing. Sometimes you might have different audiences that you’re working with different connections and networks. So feel free to submit more than one. Uh, next question, can you have a virtual presenter? Unfortunately, this is a no. So the way that our breakout sessions are done is there’s about six presentations happening concurrently in rooms at the Washington Hilton, and we have a projector screen set up. But what we really value is having that like in-person dialog, especially there is a Q and A portion of the session. And so having a virtual presenter will just take away from that. So we do ask when you’re recruiting speakers to think who can actually be in person in Washington, DC, of April of 26. Next question: What AV, what presentation materials will be available? What is the room kind of looking like? So as I mentioned, there’s about six breakout sessions happening concurrently. About 100 people are filling those rooms, and you will get a projector screen, a table, some microphones. Many people like to bring slides just to have some sort of visual elements to advance and add to their presentations, but chairs for the audience. And, like I said, Q A period pretty, pretty simple, and what we’ve seen in the past by surveys are just like, pretty engaging for for the attendees. So Caitie, is there anything else that you want to add before we go into questions? And like I said, everyone is welcome to go ahead and start typing those questions in the chat.
Rountree 16:32
I think that just about covers it. There’s already some good questions going in the chat. One I’ll answer live. There was a question about when registration for the conference opens generally, and you should expect to see that around September. So be on the lookout. And in the meantime, we’re excited to start building with y’all. I also see a great question about travel support. Unfortunately, our ability to offer travel support for speakers is very, very limited. You know, registration is complimentary for speakers, and we also, from time to time, will give a support pass for those who you have staff that are coming with them to attend, but in terms of financial support, we’re pretty limited there. And Brittany asked a great question, is there a theme for the 2026 conference? That’s actually something we’re working on over the summer. And I will also say one of the interesting things for us is that this process is actually where themes start to emerge for us. I sometimes call our call for sessions is kind of a little listening session that as we’re seeing what is on people’s minds that that starts to help shape what the content for the conference is going to be I did mention earlier, you know, the there’s a particular climate that our members, in particular, being impacted by. Right now, we are expecting that that to inform the tone and posture of the conference this year. We’re very laser-focused as an organization on figuring out strategies to help folks move through really significant changes to funding streams. So that’s, you know, there’s just a variety of ways that that’s impacting communities and on our partners. So that’s a, I do think that that’s something to be mindful of. And, yeah, we are thinking about, you know, resilience in particular is something that we’re we’re hoping to really cultivate here. Yeah.
Schneider 18:54
Caitie, while you’re reading some of the questions that just came in, I just wanted to hop in and answer out loud the question that I just typed, which someone asked, how long are the session descriptions? And the maximum is 5000 characters. And then, Caitie, I feel like you’ve covered, cost is free for all speakers.
Rountree 19:21
Yeah, I believe there’s a question here about previous submissions that were selected, which is a great question, and does give a good sense of what type of content resonates with our audiences. A lot of that content can be found on the conference website, which Haley will share here as well. Yeah, yeah. It’s a great, great way to get a sense of what folks are interested in. Yep,
Schneider 19:47
Yes to answer your question. The recording of this webinar will be shared out, so I will include in the recording also all the links that we’ve talked about. I know I’d mentioned them in the slides, but I also through in the slides the 2025 Just Economy Conference recap, so you can get a feel of what it’s like to be at our conference. And that includes some of those sessions, breakout sessions, but also general sessions. So yeah, that will be included in the email sent out to you after this.
Caitie, do you see this question from Liz, do you want to take that one?
Rountree 20:26
Yes, this is a question about the voting exercise that we’ve started doing the last few years, which is actually really, really it’s been really, really fun. So we curate the proposals down to a shorter list, and then within that list, we select some of those to go up for vote. So we try not to overwhelm folks. Nobody wants to wade through 100 proposals to figure out where to vote. But we look for those that are that we’re that we and the program committee are genuinely a little bit on edge or divided on and I guess that’s that’s one thing. Haley, I’m not sure if you mentioned that, but we do have a program committee that works with us to review and grade proposals, and we recruit that program committee to be reflective of the diverse audience segments within the conference, and so we get a lot of insight from them before we get to that voting exercise, and that kind of helps us narrow down. Particularly, it’s not uncommon for some members of the program committee to really like a session proposal, and for other committee members to be like, you know, it’s okay, but it wouldn’t, wouldn’t be the thing that I would get on a plane for. And then we look for that, that extra insight by sharing it out with our full audience to see you know who more folks agree with. So that’s a really great way for us to really make sure that this event is audience-driven. Yeah.
There’s a question about, what types of speakers. Will we have regulators and politicians? Short answer is yes, and that yeah we, we tend to invite folks that have in a variety of different roles in the federal government to speak, some as breakout speakers, some on the main stage. That’s true every year, and will be true this year as well. Yeah.
Schneider 22:41
Last year we had Maxine Waters, and it was a lot of fun. She got the crowd going, for sure,
Rountree 22:51
This is a great question. Ilana, I’m sorry I’m terrible with pronouncing names, asked if we’ll be considering all proposals for lightning or standard or if only for the preference selected. We pay a lot of attention to what you indicate you think the right format is, but we also will kind of use our best judgment, and if we think that we might be able to Slide something in, but change the format a little bit. We’ll follow up and see if the person who proposed it would be open to it. One of the reasons why we started doing lightning sessions was to be able to say yes to more content. And so sometimes that requires a tweak, and sometimes when we say, Hey, could you narrow this down into, you know, this one section, and probably have only one of the speakers that you proposed. Sometimes people say, I just don’t think it’s really it’s not going to work that way. And we can say, okay, then resubmit this next year, and hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to say yes to it next year. So that’s, that’s kind of how we approach that.
But we, you know, we love to try to find a way to say yes to as many things as possible and also respect, you know, y’all as subject matter experts to know whether a different format is going to be really tough to accommodate. Yeah.
Schneider 24:20
Also, Caitie, you got the pronunciation right.
Rountree 24:24
Yes, it’s rare. It’s my one for the month. There’s a question about how many proposals we get. It’s probably around 225, ish, yeah. That That sounds about right.
Schneider 24:49
And then we usually have around 35 breakout sessions. Part of that question, yep, Cynthia to answer your question about the. Posting the short answers to questions answered live. Yeah, I can take the transcript, and when I send out the recording, it will include our live answers in that transcript.
Rountree 25:13
And let me go ahead. I’m going to go ahead and put the link to conference website where information on past conferences can also be shared. I think the cadence of questions is starting to slow down a little bit here, and I think we might be able to get you all in and out in 30 minutes, which feels perfect to us, but we are absolutely here to answer additional questions as you’re working on your proposals, Haley, tell us one more time when the deadline is?
Schneider 25:46
July 25.
Rountree 25:49
Awesome. So one month, yeah. Well, thank you guys so much. We really, really appreciate it again. Y’all, expertise and ability to put together these really impactful sessions is really what makes this conference work, and we’re so grateful for you. All right. Thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
