Knight Foundation and several of its partners will be at the Independent Sector’s annual conference starting this Sunday in San Francisco. Over several days, the conference will feature game changing people, events and ideas to ignite new thinking on the future of charitable sector. 

Sunday’s luncheon plenary conversation will focus on what lies ahead for America after the election dust settles. The conversation will be moderated by Knight Foundation President & CEO, Alberto Ibargüen, with speakers Matt Miller of the Washington Post, Arturo Vargas, of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and Ken Harbaugh, of ServiceNation. It will consider how the 2012 election results will shape the nation’s future and how they will affect communities. The plenary will be emceed by Steve McCormick of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. 

Also on Sunday at 2 p.m. PT, Knight Foundation trustee Mariam Noland will moderate a breakout session on strategic leadership for nonprofits. Led by Professor James Phills, director of the Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, it will focus on how creating strategic change is one of the most critical challenges that CEOs face today. Phills will draw from his research and consulting experience to illustrate the psychological and organizational barriers that can get in the way.

Belinda Lawrence, Knight’s vice president/chief administrative officer, will co-facilitate a breakout session with Barbara Kibbe of Salesforce.com.  “Move the Needle By Thinking Better Together” will explore ways those in the sector work together to meet needs and address tough challenges.

On Monday, at 10:15 a.m. PT, Knight Foundation’s Vice President/Strategy and Assessment, Mayur Patel, will be on a panel about how using data effectively can lead to innovation and better decision making. The conversation will explore ways to harness new and existing data to increase impact. Other discussion participants will be Kevin Bolduc, The Center for Effective Philanthropy, Elizabeth Boris, National Center for Charitable Statistics, Nancy Lublin, Do Something, Inc., Rebecca Masisak, TechSoup, Elizabeth Pastor, Humantific;  Jake Porway, DataKind and Jennifer Sigler, GlobalGiving Foundation. Fay Twersky of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will faciliate the conversation.

Patel will also participate in Monday’s Luncheon Plenary “From Small Change to Sea Change: Reflections on the Power of the Sector” and join his class of 2011 American Express NGen Fellows in presenting the results of their project Leading Through Data at a pre-conference session Sunday morning. 

The full conference schedule is available online. 

Follow @knightfdn and @IndSector on Twitter using the hashtag #ISConf to learn more about the conference throughout the weekend. Several of conference sessions will be lived-blogged at IndependentSector.org.

By Elizabeth R. Miller, communications associate at Knight Foundation