2026 Risk Summit Agenda
First Day
8:00 am
Breakfast, Registration, and Networking with Conference Sponsors
Visit with our sponsors, staff, and other attendees while you enjoy a bountiful breakfast buffet!
Read More9:00 am
Opening Plenary Session: Project Everest – Reaching New Heights in Risk Management
Alan Mallory, a professional engineer and mountaineer, will share insights from his family’s Mount Everest journey to inspire your risk practice. You’ll learn the importance of maintaining a future-oriented view, addressing the people needs that arise along the way, tactics for mitigating risk, how to stay focused, and skills for resolving conflicts. This keynote will elevate your heart rate and stimulate your brain. Every team has its Everest—learn how to work through the challenges and make it a reality.
Read MoreSpeaker
10:15 am
Nonprofit Risk Jeopardy!
This engaging workshop in the spirit of the popular TV show “Jeopardy!” will equip risk management newbies with the foundational knowledge to be effective in their roles—and spur deeper curiosity. Hosted by nonprofit insurance broker Scott Konrad and featuring three risk champions as contestants, this session—a new and improved reprise of Konrad’s game at the 2016 Risk Summit—will prove that risk and insurance can be fun.
Read MoreModerator
The Solo Act: Risk Management for a Team of One
Running risk management alone at a nonprofit means wearing every hat—and making sure none of them catch fire. This session shares practical tips, tools, and frameworks for the solo risk professional who needs to assess, communicate, and manage organizational risk without a team behind them. Walk away with a prioritization approach, a stakeholder communication strategy, and a toolkit built for the reality of doing more with less.
Read MoreNavigate a Challenging Insurance Market
In today’s insurance marketplace, some nonprofits struggle to find coverage for all their activities, while others experience challenges with certain coverage lines.
Join this panel discussion to hear from experts on how the insurance market is evolving, how to navigate common issues, and how to maximize your relationship with your insurance agent or broker and leverage resources available from your carriers.
Read MoreModerator
Panelists
11:30 am
Risk Maturity: Beyond the Tyranny of Run-On Risk Registers and Hopeless Heat Maps
Many nonprofit teams continue to use increasingly complex spreadsheets to track top risks and produce heat maps for risk reporting. The problem with that approach? As spreadsheets grow from four to fourteen and forty columns, the information they contain becomes more cryptic. Worse, risk leaders spend too much time chasing colleagues to fill every box and too little time on productive risk conversations. Learn how to hop off the hamster wheel and create a practical, goal-focused approach to risk program maturity that will inspire confidence and action.
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Getting Ahead of the Crisis: Proactive Emergency Preparedness
This workshop explores the various emergency incidents that cause significant disruption and safety concerns for nonprofit organizations, including facility damage, workplace violence, health crises, and natural disasters. Using real examples from her time leading crisis response across the 31 offices at the Center for Employment Opportunities, participants will walk through the critical risk and compliance considerations for each scenario, such as national OSHA requirements, state-specific regulations, and insurance impacts. Finally, participants will receive actionable templates and tools to develop comprehensive, proactive plans that ensure risk managers are fully equipped before a crisis occurs.
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When the Government Comes Knocking: A Nonprofit Readiness Workshop
Recent developments show that both federal law enforcement agencies and Congress are increasing scrutiny of nonprofit organizations, with investigations spanning compliance, fraud, political activity, and potential links to extremism – how prepared is your organization if investigators come knocking?
Drawing on experience as former federal attorneys and investigators – including as the former head of two federal offices of investigations – this fast-paced, interactive session will help demystify the investigative process through mock governmental inquiries and practical real-world examples. Attendees will leave with strategies to effectively identify and mitigate risk early, and how to respond effectively when issues arise.
Read MoreSpeakers
12:30 pm
1:45 pm
Change Management For The Nonprofit Workforce
As the nonprofit sector faces emerging threats and opportunities, nonprofit teams are being asked to juggle more than they ever thought possible. Learn how to develop and roll out change initiatives strategically, solicit and act on feedback, navigate problems, and develop a foundation to navigate an era of endless change.
Read MoreTranslating Security Risks into Mission Impacts
This session will break down how to map technical security gaps to specific mission objectives, aligning security initiatives with organizational goals. We will also cover how to build a narrative that resonates with the less tech-oriented team members in your nonprofit. You’ll leave with a clearer sense of how to improve your organization’s technical security and how that will benefit your work in the community.
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Stress-Testing Risks and Assumptions: A Fast Tool to Steady Your Footing Under Pressure
Every risk decision rests on assumptions that probably haven’t been tested lately, and that’s usually where the trouble starts. In this hands-on session, small groups will scan six organizational preparedness categories (decision capacity, funding, future readiness, legal exposure, public trust, and partnerships), choose one, and stress-test the assumption it sits on to see what breaks if it’s wrong. Attendees leave with a repeatable worksheet they can run on any category, with any team, starting the following week.
Read MoreSpeaker
3:00 pm
Peaks, Valleys, Humility and Humor: Lessons from Risk Leaders
This session features a panel of graduates from NRMC’s risk intensive, the Risk Leadership Certificate Program. Graduates of the program will share what they have learned on their journeys through challenging terrain, including how they dealt with skeptics and detractors along the way, as well as moments of joy and validation.
Read MorePanelists
Build (or Enhance) a Nonprofit AI Policy
Using artificial intelligence thoughtfully can help your team members spend more time on high-impact work. But AI presents safety, security, environmental, and ethical risks to nonprofit teams and constituents. Learn how to build an AI policy, or enhance the policy you have, to support your team’s decisions on AI use as your needs and the technology evolve.
Read MoreSpeaker
4:15 pm
Using Humor to Build Risk Engagement and Insight
Humor can relieve stress, brings people closer together, and even be persuasive. Explore how to use humor to reduce resistance and increase engagement in risk communication. Learn what types, tips, and examples of humor to apply in different situations to foster a positive culture in your nonprofit while addressing serious issues.
Read MoreSpeaker
Board Risk Direction: Moving Beyond the Checklist
Risk direction is more than a governance formality. This session helps boards engage in meaningful, strategic risk discussions. Learn how to strengthen risk direction without undue interference in staff decisions.
Read MoreHow to Inspire and Support Timely, Risk-Aware Decisions
Many nonprofits deliver support and services that are truly urgent. This session explores ways to inspire and support risk-aware decision making when protracted processes are not possible. Learn from experienced leaders who have worked in challenging and dynamic environments around the world. They’ll share how they approach decision-making that reflects risk awareness and due care without causing undue delay.
Read MorePanelist
5:30 pm
Second Day
8:00 am
ERLCP: Learn About NRMC’s Virtual Cohort-Based Training Program
Moderator
RLCP: Learn About NRMC’s In-person, Risk Leadership Intensive
Moderators
Creating Resilience Through a Reaccreditation Process
Moderator
Real Talk from a Nonprofit Insurance Broker
Moderator
People Principles: Managing Humans in a High-Risk Era
9:00 am
Fraud Risk Management in the Age of AI
Some fraud schemes and techniques are as old as time. Others appeared moments ago as scammers discover new ways to employ AI capabilities in their quest. Learn practical approaches and actions that can help nonprofits strengthen fraud detection and deter fraud wherever it originates
Read MoreSpeaker
Creating Accessible, Effective, and Values-Aligned Contracts for Mission-Driven Organizations
This practical, hands-on session will show nonprofit leaders how to create clear, plain-language contract templates that advance your mission, foster strong partnerships, and proactively manage risk. Participants will leave with concrete tools and examples they can immediately use to build contracts that are easier to understand, easier to implement, and better equipped to navigate conflict when it arises.
Read MoreSpeaker
10:15 am
ERM Master Class: Help Your Risk Management Program Take Wing
Author Michael Power says a great enterprise risk management program should take a bird’s-eye view of the organization, addressing risk holistically. But how do you get team members and departments working together to do that, while understanding and delivering on their own risk management responsibilities? Hear from experienced risk champions insights and takeaways from their journeys as nonprofit ERM architects and champions.
Read MoreModerator
Panelist
Get Ready for Evolving Cyberthreats
Cyberattacks increasingly target nonprofits and their valuable data. This session outlines the latest threats and practical defenses organizations can implement today. Gain a clearer understanding of vulnerabilities and how to strengthen your cybersecurity posture.
Read MoreBusiness Income Coverage for Nonprofits: Determining the Right Limit and Completing a Worksheet Accurately
Speaker
11:30 am
How to Stay Cognitively Engaged While Using AI
Have you ever had the feeling when using AI for a routine task that it was just too easy? Alarmingly frictionless? Congratulations! That’s your very human brain reminding you that while you may not see the risks of AI in every standard query, they’re always present. Those risks include losing key human skills and zoning out when you should be making important human judgment calls. Join us for learning and hands-on practice to work with AI in an engaged, risk-aware way.
Read MoreSpeaker
How to Handle Hard Conversations
Unresolved workplace conflicts can gain momentum, drain productivity, and expose organizations to potential legal, financial, and reputational risks. Discover tools you can use to handle difficult workplace conversations, focusing on conflict resolution, communication strategies, and emotional intelligence.
Read MoreSpeaker
Safety Snacks: Bite-Sized Solutions for Big Risk Challenges
Designed for risk management beginners, this session provides practical, easy-to-apply strategies for turning incident reports and facility usage data into meaningful risk management tools. Participants will learn how to identify trends, assess risk exposure, and develop facility risk profiles that support proactive decision-making and safety planning. Additional “safety snacks” will offer quick, actionable insights on topics such as OSHA, child abuse prevention, and insurance considerations.
Read MoreSpeaker
12:30 pm
Lunch On Your Own in Reston Town Center
1:45 pm
Risk Help Live: Stump our ED with Your Formidable Risk Dilemmas
Join NRMC’s ED Melanie Herman for an unscripted, fast-paced session featuring your questions and her off the cuff suggested strategies. Bring your thorniest risk challenge—or curiosity about what others are facing—and get insights from a risk leader with more than three decades of experience in nonprofit risk management.
Read MoreSpeaker
Data Access and Privacy: Safeguard Your Mission
Learn how simple steps to strengthen data privacy at your nonprofit can build trust with constituents and manage compliance risk. You’ll leave with practical steps you can take on access controls, data collection and retention, opt-outs, and much more.
Read MoreSpeaker
Using the Anti-Futures Triangle to Build Organizational Risk Resilience
In this session, participants will begin building a new dimension of organizational risk resilience by working through the “anti-futures triangle.” This construct will challenge participants to think critically and surface orthodox beliefs—the deep-seated assumptions we make about how the world works—that pull their organizations back toward the past, intensify the growing weight of the present, and 3) create a sense of vulnerability about the push from undesirable futures.
By surfacing and questioning the orthodox beliefs that underpin these three conditions, participants can help their organizations develop a deeper understanding of disruptive possibilities, strengthen risk resilience, and shift attention toward a more beneficial anticipation of plausible futures.
IMPORTANT NOTE: A link to a brief preparatory presentation for this session will be included in the conference Welcome Email sent to all registered attendees prior to the event. Participants planning to attend this session are encouraged to view the presentation in advance.
Read MoreSpeaker
3:00 pm
Experienced Risk Leaders Roundtable
Join fellow seasoned nonprofit risk professionals for an engaging peer-to-peer roundtable discussion focused on the realities of leading risk management in today’s complex environment. This interactive session is designed for experienced risk leaders to openly share challenges, successes, lessons learned, and emerging concerns with colleagues who understand the unique demands of the role. Through candid conversation and collaborative problem-solving, participants will gain fresh perspectives, practical insights, and valuable connections with peers facing similar opportunities and risks across the nonprofit sector.
Read MoreModerator
Emerging Risk Leaders Roundtable
Are you new to a nonprofit risk management role or looking to expand your risk leadership skills? Join this interactive roundtable designed specifically for emerging risk leaders. Facilitated by an experienced nonprofit risk professional, this session provides a welcoming environment to ask questions, share early-career observations, discuss challenges, and learn from peers navigating similar experiences. Participants will gain practical guidance, fresh perspectives, and valuable connections while exploring the opportunities and complexities of building an effective risk management program and growing as a risk leader.
Read MoreModerator
Filter by Tracks
“One thing I love about the Risk Summit is connecting and learning from / with really great people.”
— Lisa Prinz
“One thing I love about the Risk Summit is the ability to see and feel the passion of nonprofit leaders as they learn and share together.”
— Michael Schraer
“One thing I love about the Risk Summit is the opportunity to connect and learn from other risk managers, nonprofit professionals, and NRMC staff. I have attended the Risk Summit multiple years and always look forward to connecting with returning attendees and meeting new people. The Risk Summit brings together a diverse and engaged set of professionals who are ready to learn, share, and connect.”