About Upswell 2023

Upswell, powered by Independent Sector, is a locally grounded, community-informed, and nationally relevant platform driven by the voices and experiences of changemakers from across the country. Born out of the Independent Sector Annual Conference, Upswell was created in 2018 to be a central meeting place for all changemakers, including community activists, nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, academics, journalists, and others doing social good.

The conference features two days of sessions and has awesome programs centered around three tracks: Museum | Computer | Network.

• Museum: Take a closer look at the big picture and explore how technology has impacted the field, your organization, and yourself. 
• Computer: From IT to interactives, APIs to audio guides, share the stories behind your work with computers and offer practical advice for your peers across the sector.
• Network: Engage in free-flowing Open Space Discussions to explore the ideas, topics, and questions you bring to the conference—you are the session creator!

Join us in all of the fun and stop and say hi!

Forum One Speaker Sessions

Crafting a Culture of Inclusiveness: Prioritizing Accessibility in Your Organization
Time: Wednesday, November 1st, 11:15 am to 12:00 pm
Speaker(s): Dan Mouyard, Technical Architect

You’ve learned the importance of accessibility and are ready to implement best practices at your organization, but you’re only one person. This talk hopes to answer the following questions:

• How do you make headway on achieving your goals without burning yourself out?
• How do you get buy-in from upper management to make accessibility a priority?
• What tools, resources, and processes are available to help educate others in your organization about accessibility?
• How can you integrate accessibility into all practices at your organization?
• What are the different ways to organize accessibility leadership within your organization?

How to Tackle Content Migration with Ease
Time: Wednesday, November 1st, 1:15 pm to 2:00 pm
Speaker(s): Jeanette Stair, Government Services Project Director, and Heather Burke, Project Director

Of the many tasks you will tackle in the course of launching a new website, one of the most important ones is content migration: the process of populating your new website with the content that is going to tell your story. Once the website is built—the scaffolding, structure, and design—your content is what brings it to life.

As you start adding up all the pages and posts and images and assets on your website, all of a sudden it may no longer seem so simple a task.

In this session, we’ll discuss the following:

• Guiding principles and tips to help you feel empowered and organized as you head into this pivotal process.
• Building your content team: who needs to be involved, how decisions are made
• The biggest challenges you’re likely to face and may not yet have considered

Participants will walk away with tangible next steps and feel confident about what questions to ask and how to plan for a future content migration.

Maintaining Your Site’s Accessibility Well After Launch
Time: Wednesday, November 1st, 2:15 pm to 3:00 pm
Speaker(s): Jeanette Stair, Government Services Project Director

You’ve just rebuilt your site and made sure your functionality and content are accessible and 508-compliant. Now that you’re shifting to day-to-day operations, how do you make sure you maintain that level of accessibility as you make content and development updates? And, how can you make the site even better for your audiences once user data starts to roll in?

In this session, we’ll identify:

• The most common challenges for content contributors
• How to maintain an effective accessibility governance plan that doesn’t just sit there
• Strategies for monitoring and regular audits that really work
• Long-term considerations that you can plan for today

Be ready to ask questions and share your challenges and successes.

Design Sprints: Designing, Prototyping, and Testing the New IRA Incentive Hub in 5 Days
Time: Wednesday, November 1st, 3:15 pm to 4:00 pm
Speaker(s): Beth Watson, Strategy Lead

Energy Star (https://www.energystar.gov/) is well-positioned to help American households capitalize on IRA tax credits and rebates for energy-efficient upgrades. Since its website receives significant traffic (approx. 30,000 hits/day), it was important to the Energy Star digital products team to take a design-thinking approach with the zip-code based Incentive Hub.

Using the Google Venture Labs (http://www.gv.com/sprint/) sprint process—which is most commonly used in the private sector, but less so in government— a cross-functional team conducted a 5-day (remote) Design Sprint to coalesce information, ideate solutions, make decisions, and prototype designs and content for user testing.

Join this session to learn:

• How the team implemented the Google Venture Labs approach to a government platform
• What worked, what didn’t and how the high-fidelity prototype fared with usability testing
• When to utilize a Design Sprint and other intensive collaboration techniques

Participants will walk away from the session with a good understanding of what a design sprint is and what is needed to conduct one, as well as tangible insights and inspiration from a real-life example.

Putting CX at the Center of a DMV Website Redesign
Time: Thursday, November 2nd, 2:15 pm to 3:00 pm
Speaker(s): Kerry Greer, Solutions Architect and Bridget Veerhoff, Program Director

With ever-evolving customer experience (CX) expectations, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) stands out as a significant point of interaction for a large portion of the population. As the Commonwealth of Virginia looked to redesign their DMV website, a focus on a strong CX is what ultimately spelled success. They also chose Drupal 9 to bring these user experience and design concepts to life.

In this session, we’ll discuss:

• Taking CX feedback to heart when doing a redesign
• Developing extensive customer-centric designs that champion mobile and accessibility
• Building technical content models and paragraph styles that bring designs to life in an easy-to-maintain content management system
• Ensuring that your website continues to prioritizes CX through development and once launched through prioritization, data analytics, and optimization

Participants will walk away from this sessions with tangible CX insights to apply to their own government websites, as well as the building blocks to approach a similar redesign.

About the Panel

Over the last four years, communicators and marketers have been put to the test, having had to adjust in real-time to come up with new strategies and approaches to meet the ever-changing needs of their stakeholders and customers in an ever-fluctuating marketplace. Today, as we continue to see budgets and resources tighten, marcomm professionals may feel that they have little wiggle room to fail, which leads to a reticence to experiment—even when something new is exactly what’s needed. Creating a workplace where marcomm teams are empowered to experiment requires a complete shift in culture, including making experimentation an integral part of everyday life. In this session, we examine the benefits of creating a culture of experimentation, discuss how to overcome the most common obstacles, and highlight some organizations that are doing it well.

At the Seattle Social Hour, you’ll have the opportunity to network with industry professionals, share your experiences, and gain valuable insights. Expect engaging conversations, delicious refreshments, and a relaxed atmosphere where you can unwind and have fun.

So, mark your calendars, RSVP, and get ready to make new connections at the Digital Impact Summit: Seattle Social Hour. We can’t wait to see you there!

Not in Seattle? No worries, we have other social hours happening in multiple cities! Check out the other cities here.

Learn more and register for the Digital Impact Summit here. If you have any questions, please email Kassandra at: kswenson@forumone.com.

At the DC Social Hour, you’ll have the opportunity to network with industry professionals, share your experiences, and gain valuable insights. Expect engaging conversations, delicious refreshments, and a relaxed atmosphere where you can unwind and have fun.

So, mark your calendars, RSVP, and get ready to make new connections at the Digital Impact Summit: DC Social Hour. We can’t wait to see you there!

Not in DC? No worries, we have other social hours happening in multiple cities! Check out the other cities here.

Learn more and register for the Digital Impact Summit here. If you have any questions, please email Kassandra at: kswenson@forumone.com.

At the NY Social Hour, you’ll have the opportunity to network with industry professionals, share your experiences, and gain valuable insights. Expect engaging conversations, delicious refreshments, and a relaxed atmosphere where you can unwind and have fun.

So, mark your calendars, RSVP, and get ready to make new connections at the Digital Impact Summit: NY Social Hour. We can’t wait to see you there!

Not in New York? No worries, we have other social hours happening in multiple cities! Check out the other cities here.

Learn more and register for Digital Impact Summit here. If you have any questions, please email Kassandra at: kswenson@forumone.com.

At this year’s #ComNet23 in Atlanta, GA our Managing Director of Client Services, Jenn Johnson, will be presenting Forum One’s impactful work with AARP Livable Communities and discussing how data can be used to create impact in communities all over the country.

At this year’s #ComNet23 in Atlanta, GA, our VP of Strategy, Steven Bond will be presenting alongside the Barr Foundation’s May Chalifour to discuss how Forum One and the Barr Foundation worked together to develop a new framework for navigating the constantly changing social media landscape.

Forum One is hosting the second annual Digital Impact Summit, a premier event that explores the intersection of technology, strategy, and mission-driven impact. If you’re a nonprofit leader, a government agency professional, or an individual committed to driving progress, the Summit is designed for you!

Event Details​​​

Dates: October 18-19

Duration: 2 hours each day (12:00-2:00pm ET / 9:00-11:00am PT), with in-person social hours at 5 PM local time on October 19 in select cities.

Format: Virtual Sessions + In-person Social Hours

Cost: FREE

Featured Speakers

Our lineup includes an impressive array of experts in the digital field, including:

• Afua Bruce, co-author of The Tech That Comes Next
• Adele Waugaman, US Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Caitlin Augustin, DataKind
• Ebony Walton, National Center for Education Statistics
• Joel Gurin, Center for Open Data Enterprise
• John Zoltner, Save the Children US
• Laura Walker McDonald, International Committee of the Red Cross
• Alexis Bonnell, Air Force Research Laboratory
• Jana Lynott, AARP Public Policy Institute

…and more to be announced soon!

Sessions and Topics

While we’re putting the finishing touches on our agenda, here’s a sneak peek at some of the engaging topics we’ll explore:

• Harnessing Data for Impact in Health, Education, and Climate

• The Transformative Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Mission-Driven Sector

• C​​​​rafting Engaging Digital Experiences to Drive Change

• The Emergence of Nonprofit and Public Product Design

By joining us, you will:

• Gain insights directly from mission-driven leaders on driving progress

• Discover what’s making an impact today and what’s needed tomorrow

• Identify mission-critical strategies for your organization

• Network and form valuable partnerships with peers

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a transformative event exploring digital solutions’ power in driving mission-driven progress.