Custom Training and Speaking

Professionally delivered, custom risk training and keynotes to empower and excite your nonprofit! 

NRMC’s executive director, Melanie Lockwood Herman and lead consultant Rachel Sams are available to deliver custom keynote presentations, workshops, seminars, webinars and other training programs. 

How is training or a speaking engagement with NRMC different? We tailor each presentation or custom workshop to suit the audience and interests of our clients. During our initial information gathering we’ll talk with you about your expectations, what hot button risks are on your mind, and learn about priority risk management challenges your team or audience faces. Our process includes a review of your website, event marketing materials, and anything else we can find to learn more about your mission and your most pressing risks. The NRMC team always arrives on-site early to take in the atmosphere of the event and tune into issues that your audience cares about.

We also are skilled facilitators and include hands-on activities in many of our workshops. This allows our participants to learn from one another and practice one or more techniques discussed in a workshop. Every aspect of your workshop will be customized to address the concerns, backgrounds and/or experience-level of the audience. And we’re also available to explore new topics and develop brand-new material for an upcoming conference, staff training, or board education session. 

Here’s a sample of our favorite workshop topics:

• Get Ready for the Zombie Apocalypse: Crisis Management & Crisis Communications for Nonprofits
• Risk Rundown: Top 10 Risks Facing Nonprofits
• Connect and Lead: How to Overcome Risk Aversion and Embrace the Risks Your Mission Requires
• Governance in a New Era: How to Transform and Inspire Board Leadership
• Tackle Your Top Risks with Systems Thinking
• Taking the High Road: How to Manage Human Resource Risks
• The Frankenstein Effect: Preventing the Misclassification Transformation between Employees & Volunteers
• Finance Superheroes: Fiscal Oversight Superpowers for CFOs & Board Members
• Lego Love: Build the Board Your Mission Deserves
• Here’s Looking at You Kid: The Fundamentals of Youth Protection
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Nonprofit Boards and Risk Oversight

View a list of our recent speaking engagements here.

What you need to know to get started for any speaking engagement or custom training.

• Bookings may be scheduled up to a year in advance. 
• The cost to book Melanie or Rachel for an in-person program is $3,500 (plus actual economy travel expenses). Affiliate Members have priority pricing ($2,500 plus actual economy travel expenses).
• The fee for a custom webinar (30-90 minutes in length) is $2,400 ($1,800 for Affiliate Members).
• The fee for a 90-minute webinar is $2,600 ($2,000 for Affiliate Members)
• The final fee may be higher depending on the client’s requirements for rehearsals, run-throughs, quizzes, or other custom engagement elements. An additional fee may be involved for a an in-person program that requires 8 or more hours of travel time.
• NRMC’s presentation fee will be waived for clients that place a publications order of $5,000 or more at the time of the booking. Speaking clients that wish to take advantage of this option must pay for the order (and any shipping costs) in full prior to the date of the speaking engagement. To learn more about our books, see this webpage. 
• Speaking references are available upon request.

Special Topics for Risk Management Workshops

RESPECT: Harassment Prevention and Risk Management

Sexual harassment prevention and risk management for nonprofits and associations 

People are speaking up and out about sexual harassment and other forms of workplace harassment. Now is the time to make sure your organization is on solid ground. RESPECT™ brings risk management, crisis communications and behavioral health expertise together to guide your organization in setting sound policies and implementing appropriate employee, volunteer and board training. Fundamental to RESPECT™ is a vulnerabilities-review specific to your organization, as well as the development of thoughtful crisis communications messaging and an incident and crisis response plan. Solidifying a culture of respect for all—and being prepared—put you and your mission on solid ground.

Risk Appetite Workshop & Coaching

“How can we empower team members across our organization to comfortably make decisions that align with our risk appetite?” This is the question that nonprofit leaders and board members ask when it’s time to develop and apply risk appetite.

Why Risk Appetite?

Setting your nonprofit’s risk appetite will guide an organization-wide approach to risk-taking that aligns with your values and aims to advance your nonprofit’s mission. Ultimately, staff leadership and the board must develop a shared vision for appropriate risk-taking and communicate that vision to staff members. Staff across the organization can then interpret and apply the organization’s risk appetite whenever they make decisions or vet opportunities to take risk.

When nonprofit leaders fail to address risk appetite, team members are more likely to engage in misaligned decision-making, which can threaten progress toward strategic objectives. 

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

Engage NRMC for a Risk Appetite Workshop & Coaching

The NRMC team can facilitate the development of risk appetite resources for your organization, through a highly interactive workshop for staff leaders and board members. You’ll explore questions like: “are we taking the appropriate level and type of risk across the organization to advance our objectives?” This holistic risk mindset invites a compelling, birds-eye view of strategic risks and opportunities, compared to the age-old risk management question: “is a particular risk being managed as desired?”

Our risk appetite workshop (~half-day session) includes:

• an educational presentation that informs your team about the concept of risk appetite
• a hands-on activity in which your team will learn to develop a risk appetite position, by considering thought-provoking and controversial opportunities to advance the mission of a hypothetical nonprofit or NGO
• a facilitated discussion to develop a real, formalized risk appetite statement for your organization
• an activity that refines the working risk appetite statement by exploring the way your own team members will be asked to interpret and apply risk appetite when they make decisions

Following the risk appetite workshop, the NRMC team will provide coaching to you as you communicate your risk appetite to staff organization-wide. Coaching includes:

• Guidance to formalize and roll-out risk appetite resources
• Delivery of train-the-trainer materials, which your staff leaders can use to teach staff teams about risk appetite
• Suggested exercises for monitoring the application of your risk appetite frame as team members make decisions over time
• Guidance for refreshing your approach to risk appetite in the years to come

Fee: $11,000-$19,800 (depending on project scope) plus actual economy travel expenses for any in-person meetings and training requested by the client.

Note: As part of our educational mission, we offer a very limited slate of pro bono presentations each year. Please fill out the inquiry form and note in the comments that you are requesting a pro bono presentation. If we cannot accommodate you, we will add you to the waitlist for next year.