1. Ensuring Your Organization is Relevant Through Strategic Planning

Session description: Keep in mind: The community decides if your organization is relevant. Strategic planning is the process to determine your relevance. Good planning produces more than a road map. Good planning gets everyone on the same wavelength and stimulates change.

Audience: Executive Directors/CEOs. Development Officers. Other management staff. Volunteers. Experienced professionals, not entry level.

Timeframe: Multiple versions – 75 minutes, 2 hours, 3 hours

2. Appraising the Performance of Your Chief Executive

Session description: Your governing board is accountable for your organization’s health and quality. How does the board assure this health and quality? By hiring the right executive director, among other things! Hiring (and supporting and appraising, and if necessary firing) the chief executive of the corporation is a critical governing responsibility. Unfortunately, too many boards don’t do it well. This workshop reviews the process, roles, evaluation criteria, and provides sample tools. (

Timeframe: 1.5 – 2 hour versions

3. Women and Philanthropy

Session description: More and more studies focus on women and their way of giving. Women represent a significant portion of the population in communities worldwide. Women live longer than men, thus retaining family assets. And women have different interests, disinterests and approaches to philanthropy.

As the founder of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, Joyaux is engaged in helping to level the playing field for women and girls, and fostering philanthropy within this demographic group.

4. Social Justice and Progressive Philanthropy

Session description: Traditional philanthropy dominates the sector, and may reinforce the status quo and limit social change. In general, writing and teaching in the philanthropic sector does not give equal voice or recognition to social change, social justice and progressive philanthropy.

What does social justice mean? How would the world look if it there were justice? What role does philanthropy play in creating social justice? How is progressive philanthropy different than traditional philanthropy and why do we need both?