Annual Conference – Keynotes

The Power of Truth: Leading Through Uncertainty

Award-winning independent journalist Georgia Fort has spent nearly two decades in media. She reports from the front lines of race, power, justice, and American life. Her coverage of Operation Metro Surge reached more than 40 million people worldwide. She is now at the center of one of the most consequential press freedom cases in modern American history.

The Minnesota native draws from her reporting, her experience being targeted by the federal government, and her work building the Center for Broadcast Journalism and acquiring Power 104.7 FM to advance representation in media.

Her keynote is an invitation to nonprofit leaders to confront inequity, protect truth, and change the systems causing harm in their communities.

Showing Up When The World Is On Fire: Balancing Urgency & Slowness in Times That Demand All of Us 

Activist and Author Ashley Fairbanks launched Stand With Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge and helped direct over $40 million in donations to mutual aid, nonprofits, and rent for families in need. In this talk, she will explore what it actually looks like to treat crises with the urgency they demand—without living our entire lives in crisis mode. 

Because the world is on fire. Some of it, quite literally. But the real threats come from the compounding crises of climate change, fascism, and corporate greed. How do we meet these challenges head on, protect our neighbors, but not sacrifice ourselves in the process? 

This is a talk about mutual aid, imagination, burnout, collective power, and our deep human desire to belong to one another. It’s about moving quickly when the moment demands it, moving slowly whenever we can, and building the relationships that will carry us through whatever comes next. 

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