Nonprofit Board Lab 2025
December 4, 2025 10:45 AM - 5:30 PM CST Minneapolis, MN
NACD Minnesota
Contact Us
Channon Lemon
Executive Director
NACD Minnesota Chapter
clemon@minnesota.nacdonline.org
Sheri Ellis
Program Manager
NACD Minnesota Chapter
sellis@minnesota.nacdonline.org
Find a Chapter
About The Event
Credits: 4 NACD Credits
The Nonprofit Board Lab is built on the principle of iron sharpening iron—bringing together nonprofit leaders, board members, philanthropic partners, and corporate board placement professionals for open exchange, peer dialogue, and connections that extend across the nonprofit ecosystem. Through interactive sessions, participants listen, share perspectives, and learn from one another. Designed so you walk away with insights and tools to strengthen board governance, empower leadership, and operate with strategic flexibility.
In a time that demands agility and resolve, the Lab equips leaders to stand firm in their mission while solidifying focused action to deliver greater value in an uncertain world.
Agenda
10:45 AM - Registration / Networking / Exhibits
11:30 AM - Welcome
11:45 AM - Lunch
12:15 PM - Keynote
12:45 PM - Panel Discussion
2:00 PM - Passing Break / Exhibits
2:15 PM - Lab Sessions
3:30 PM - Passing Break / Exhibits
4:15 PM - Closing Session
4:30 PM - Reception
Registration
Please note, if you are not an NACD member and have not logged into NACD registration previously, you will be asked to create an account in order to register for the Nonprofit Board Lab. This is to ensure a streamlined process with automatic updates about this and future NACD events.
In-Person Registration
Member Price: $95
Non-Member Price: $125
Virtual Registration
Member Price: $45
Non-Member Price: $65
Group Registration (for 3 or more individuals)
Member price: $85/person
Non-Member price: $105/person
Lab Day Sponsorship (onsite branding and interaction, 7 registrations)
Pricing: $2,500
If the ticket price is out of reach...
Location
McNamara Alumni Center
Add to Calendar
Sessions and Speakers
Keynote
Richard K. Davis
Opening Panel Discussion: Empowered in Collective Action
Speakers
Susan Bass Roberts
Tuleah Palmer
More speakers to be announced
Moderator
Tabitha Montgomery
Lab Session: Board Preparedness
Serving on a nonprofit board offers a meaningful opportunity to lead with purpose—but it also calls for a distinct kind of readiness. Beyond professional expertise or good intentions, board members are expected to contribute in ways that reflect deep commitment to the mission.
This session invites participants to explore how they can bring clarity, commitment, and purpose to their role on a nonprofit board—whether they’re stepping into it for the first time or refining how they lead. Participants will explore what effective board service truly requires.
Speakers
Aretha Green-Rupert
Kate Kelly
Malik Rucker
Moderator
Marisa C. Williams
Lab Session: Board / Executive Leader Partnership
At its best, a nonprofit board is more than a governing body—it is a strategic partner to the executive leader and a source of meaningful support to the organization. Today’s volatile environment requires boards to take stock of the internal and external implications affecting organizational leadership. There is a need for intentional focus on the board-executive partnership and how the board supports its executive leader. This session will explore the board’s role in recognizing and responding to changes in context that directly affect Leadership. We will lean into a generative leadership model grounded in creating an environment of trust, respect and restoration for the executive leader and their teams and promoting a continuous cycle of creativity, innovation, and positive change within the organization.
Through a mix of panel discussion, small group conversation, and hands-on reflection, participants will leave this session more equipped to help their board meet the leadership needs of today by finding the most effective alignment with its executive leader in support of the organization.
Speakers
Henry Jiménez
Sophia Lenarz-Coy
More speakers to be announced
Lab Session: Strategic Flexibility
Strategic planning has always been vital to nonprofit success—but today’s realities demand a more agile and responsive approach. The widening gap between demand and resources is prompting a deeper kind of board governance —willing to explore bold approaches, reimagine partnerships, and ask for what’s truly needed to deliver impact. Sometimes that means expanding ambitiously; other times, making tough calls about restructuring or even closing. Nonprofits can no longer rely on static, multi-year plans. Instead, strategy must become a living tool: a dynamic framework that is mission-anchored and operationally responsive and adaptable to real-time conditions.
In this session we will clarify the board’s role in planning, oversight, and organizational alignment, explore strategy in three realms, developing the plan, executing the plan and abandoning the plan when strategic pivot is required and explore a range of planning models—from nimble approaches for smaller organizations to structured frameworks for larger institutions—and learn how to choose the right fit based on capacity, complexity, and mission need.
Speakers
Craig Warren
More speakers to be announced
NACD Minnesota
Contact Us
Channon Lemon
Executive Director
NACD Minnesota Chapter
clemon@minnesota.nacdonline.org
Sheri Ellis
Program Manager
NACD Minnesota Chapter
sellis@minnesota.nacdonline.org
Find a Chapter
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| NACD and the NACD Chapter Network organizations (NACD) are non-partisan, nonprofit organizations dedicated to providing directors with the opportunity to discuss timely governance oversight practices. The views of the speakers and audience are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of NACD. |