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.
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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
Panelists
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.
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Navigate 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.
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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.
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12:30 pm
Conference Luncheon
1:45 pm
Translating 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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Moderator
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.
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Guardrails, Not Roadblocks: Navigating the Compliance-Risk Quandary
Effective compliance shouldn’t mean standing still. This session explores the delicate balance between risk management and compliance within nonprofit organizations, where regulatory obligations can sometimes overshadow a strategic or enterprise approach to risk management. Attend this workshop to learn why these two critical functions occasionally clash and how risk professionals can bridge the gap. Learn to appreciate the hidden tension between risk management and compliance, giving you a fresh blueprint to align both functions. And find out how to build dynamic guardrails that protect your organization while empowering your team to take the bold risks necessary to change the world. Leave with a fresh perspective on ways to build guardrails and dismantle the roadblocks that stifle innovation, risk taking and mission success.
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Panelists
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.
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Panelists
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.
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Panelists
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.
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4:15 pm
How 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.
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Panelists
Express Yourself: Mission Stewardship Through Risk Appetite
How much risk is our nonprofit actually willing to take? This is the question that nonprofit leaders and board members ask when it’s time to develop and apply risk appetite. Living by your organization’s risk appetite is a form of high-level mission stewardship, with goals including: Aligning risk-taking and risk management with the nonprofit’s mission and strategic priorities; Distributing accountability for risk-aware decision-making, while offering decision-making guidance to staff across the organization; Empowering staff to take more risk–particularly higher-risk, mission-advancing ventures–by teaching them to interpret and apply leadership’s vision for risk appetite when making day-to-day decisions. This session explores these topics and more.
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Cantilevering Your Approach to Cybersecurity: Cyber and Privacy Safety & Security Training
This workshop is designed to help participants increase their security awareness around cyber and online threats, equipping teams and volunteers to protect their personal information online and respond to digital crises. The training will provide specific tools and tips to effectively defend against digital threats, and provide action steps along with insights on how you can increase your privacy both on and offline.
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5:30 pm
Conference Reception
Second Day
8:00 am
ERLCP: Learn About NRMC’s Virtual Cohort-Based Training Program
Join Rachel Sams, NRMC Lead Consultant and Editor, and Simran Brar, Manager, Risk Management Administration, Goodwill Kentucky for an overview of this interactive virtual program.
ERLCP is open to any nonprofit professional who wants to learn more about risk management, no matter their role. Hear how ERLCP gives participants tools to deal with uncertainty and makes risk learning fun.
Moderators
RLCP: Learn About NRMC’s In-person Risk Leadership Intensive
Julie Reyburn, Director of Enterprise Risk Management, Episcopal Relief and Development, and Chelsea Wood, Accounts Director, Great American Insurance Group, join Elyzabeth Holford, NRMC Assistant Executive Director, to discuss this unique, in-person risk management certificate program. Each year a small cohort of risk professionals takes a deep dive into six core focus areas with coaching from NRMC consultants. Julie and Chelsea will share how they honed their risk skill sets and strengthened connections with risk management peers.
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Creating Resilience Through a Reaccreditation Process
Communities In Schools (CIS ) is a federated network of 102 affiliated organizations. Each year, roughly 1/5th go through a reaccreditation process that looks at both business and student support standards with the intent of mitigating risk. Join CIS leader Julie Dennis to learn how the process has allowed CIS to create resilient organizations who continue to show up for students by implementing the model with fidelity. Bring your ideas and questions about the intersections of risk, resilience, and reaccreditation.
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Real Talk from a Nonprofit Insurance Broker
An experienced insurance broker will give a five-minute overview of the perils and possibilities nonprofits face in today’s insurance market. The majority of this roundtable will be driven by attendee questions, so bring your most challenging coverage scenarios! This roundtable is designed for and limited to full-time nonprofit professionals.
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Everyone’s a Risk Champion: How to Build Risk into Every Role at Your Nonprofit
In the nonprofit world, mission and strategy matter, and so does the ability to navigate uncertainty and unforeseen vulnerabilities. Join this roundtable to discuss how to inspire risk awareness and risk roles across a diverse nonprofit team. Join colleagues to explore how to leverage what every team member brings to the table and provide them with the opportunity to see themselves as collective stewards of risk management.
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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
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Evolving Legal Risks, Roles and Responsibilities in Nonprofits
During the last two decades the NRMC team has observed the evolving role of legal professionals in the risk and ERM functions of both U.S. and international nonprofits. A recent report from Clyde & Co. includes the observation that “In today’s environment, the role of the GC has moved from reactive legal reviews to proactive strategic engagement.” This session explores the emerging challenges and opportunities that are shifting the focus of work led by in-house counsel.
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Panelists
Beyond the Checklist: Closing Nonprofit Finance’s Risk Blind Spots
Most nonprofit finance teams have a risk management checklist, and most checklists miss the risks that cause damage. This session moves past standard controls and audits to look at the blind spots that trip up even well-run organizations: overreliance on a single funding source, informal approval workarounds that outlive their original justification, and risk owned by no one because it sits between departments. Drawing on real nonprofit finance scenarios, we’ll build a practical framework for spotting these gaps before they become headlines, and for making risk conversations a normal part of the finance function rather than a once-a-year fire drill.
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10:15 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.
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Under Pressure: How to Transform Board Risk Briefings from Data Dumps to Strategic Risk Conversations
Risk briefings to nonprofit boards are too often filled with dense operational data that leads the board to want more of the same. Yet this familiar approach is at odds with the board’s strategic role. This practical workshop is designed for risk leaders looking to break the cycle of unproductive risk reporting. Learn how to move past compliance-driven reporting and reframe risk data into topics for engaging conversations. And learn what you need to do—and stop doing—to inspire proactive, constructive board dialogue rather than passive head-nodding, and how to connect operational vulnerabilities directly to your mission resilience.
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Business Income Coverage for Nonprofits: Determining the Right Limit and Completing a Worksheet Accurately
Have you ever looked at a Business Income worksheet and felt like you were guessing how to complete it? This hands-on workshop will take the mystery out of determining the right Business Income limit for your nonprofit organization. Learn what goes into Business Income and Extra Expense, when ordinary payroll should be included, and how to estimate the additional costs an organization may reasonably incur to continue operations after a covered event. Explore how each aspect of a nonprofit’s funding should be incorporated, so you can provide accurate information to your insurance company—and secure coverage at the level your organization needs.
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11:30 am
How to Map AI Risks in a Nonprofit: Reporting from the field
What are nonprofits actually reporting about AI risk? Using findings from the 2026 NTEN and Bridgespan State of Nonprofit AI report, this session maps real survey data to six risk categories, shows where evidence is strong or developing, and gives you a practical framework to apply in your organization. Leave with a shared vocabulary, a practical way to sort AI risks by category and owner, and an AI Risk template to take back to your own organization.
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Ask the Nonprofit Attorney: Everything You Want to Know
Bring your burning questions to this session featuring one of the country’s most experienced and respected legal advisors to nonprofits. In a Q&A-driven format, explore some of the hottest topics and legal risks creating buzz in the nonprofit community, from DEI to AI use, tax-exempt status, HR, and legal risks related to affiliates, subsidiaries, the regulation of lobbying and political activity, fundraising regulation and gift restrictions, and more. In plain English and an interactive format, learn about the red flags you need to be able to spot, what you should do when you spot them, and practical tips and suggestions for protecting your nonprofit in an increasingly complex landscape of legal risks.
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How Creative Mastery Inspires Effective Risk Leadership
In an era of unpredictable disruption, a ‘by the book’ approach to risk management is no longer enough. To navigate today’s complex landscape, nonprofit risk leaders must learn to see around corners, embrace ambiguity, and think outside the spreadsheet. This workshop explores how an artistic mindset and sensibilities can transform your approach to risk leadership. By examining the parallel worlds of creative expression and risk management, attendees will discover how the tools and approaches used by artists can be applied directly to risk management. From mastering ambiguity to sharpening perception and designing creative interventions, this workshop invites creativity in a discipline too often known for rigid rules. Whether you are a new or veteran risk leader, a compliance or finance professional, or an operations executive leading through disruption, this session will challenge you to put down the checklist and pick up the brush or portion of clay to champion a more resilient future for your organization.
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Moderator
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.
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Data Access and Privacy: Safeguard Your Mission
Learn how simple steps to strengthen data privacy at your nonprofit can build trust with constituents, prepare your organization for AI and digital transformation, and reduce compliance risk. You’ll leave with practical steps you can take on access controls, data collection and retention, and opt-outs.
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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 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: For Risk Summit participants interested in the Anti-Futures Triangle Session on Friday 11/6 at 1:45 pm EST, please click the ‘Read More’ button to find the link to watch the 15-minute preparation presentation.
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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.
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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.
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Meeting Fatigue? How to Master Meetings and Make Them Count
This interactive, hands on workshop equips risk leaders with practical facilitation skills to make meetings more engaging, productive, and impactful. Whether you’re working with front-line, mid-level or executive teams or board committees with risk governance responsibilities, you’ll learn techniques to spark collaboration, navigate challenging discussions, and drive better decisions. The best part? You don’t have to lead the meeting to make it better.
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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.”