Join us for Shifting the Narrative: A Housing Justice Community of Practice! This half-day event brings together nonprofits, advocates, and public sector partners working in affordable housing and services for people experiencing homelessness.

Presented by HealthSpark Foundation, in partnership with Montgomery County HHS’ Office of Housing & Community Development and Bucks-Mont Collaborative, this Community of Practice features a workshop from Housing Narrative Lab focused on narrative change strategy.

Wednesday, August 19
9:00am-12:00pm
Community Partners Center, Colmar, PA

Who Is This For?

Whether your work supports people experiencing homelessness or focuses on affordable housing solutions, we hope this will be a meaningful workshop for you—a chance to learn, connect, and build relationships with organizations across the housing justice space, including opportunities to explore partnerships with other sectors touching this work.

What You’ll Takeaway

• Learn how to develop and share stories that build support for housing solutions.
• Gain new insights and tools to develop persuasive narratives for your mission, organization, and larger housing justice work.

Meet the Trainer

Housing Narrative Lab is a national, evidence-based narrative and communications hub that builds public support for safe and affordable housing options to make all our communities healthy, stable, and welcoming.

Learn how to use PA Navigate, the online tool that connects Pennsylvanians with community-based organizations that help them meet their most basic needs, such as food, shelter, transportation, and more.

Thursday, August 20
12:00-12:45pm
Zoom

Who Is This For?

All Nonprofit Professionals

What You’ll Takeaway

• A navigational overview to help you assist clients
• Greater understanding of PA Navigate as a resource and research tool
• Instructions on how to register your nonprofit with PA Navigate
• Information on how to track referrals
• Instructions and information on how to share volunteer opportunities with your organization (especially for individuals navigating new work or volunteer requirements)

Meet the Trainer

Samantha Greco, MAS,
Public Health Program Manager
Bucks County Health Improvement Partnership (BCHIP)

The Bucks-Mont Collaborative is a proud sponsor of Montgomery County’s inaugural Black Author & Business Expo! Join us on August 22 for a dynamic community experience designed for everyone. This day will include powerful speakers, valuable workshops, engaging networking, practical resources, and unforgettable conversations.

Be part of history as we launch this signature event celebrating learning, entrepreneurship, culture, and community impact!

Learn more about this community event, which is free and open to all (registration is required).

Saturday, August 22
10:00am-3:00pm
Greater Philadelphia Expo Center

Our 2026-27 Trauma Program begins this September with Trauma 101: An Overview of Trauma-Informed Care on September 8, followed by a corresponding in-person Applied Learning Circle (ALC) on September 16! Whether you’re new to trauma-informed practices or looking to strengthen your approach, this year’s program offers practical learning and opportunities for peer discussion.

View the flyer for additional information, with links to register for currently scheduled trainings.

Who Is This For?

Trauma workshops are free and open to all Bucks-Mont Collaborative members! If you are not a current member, please contact Nadja Mummery.

Meet the Facilitators

Trauma workshops are available through volunteer trainers, licensed through Lakeside Global Institute. These individuals have completed Lakeside’s Enhancing Trauma Awareness course and the 25-hour Train-the-Trainer course to become licensed adjunct trainers.

Thank you, Melissa Groden, Deborah Harris, Nadja Mummery, and Sherry Wherry, for facilitating these sessions! Learn more about these trainers.

Every organization is sitting on stories – they’re just not always easy to find, or to tell. In this two-hour, in-person workshop, Cosmic Writers will help you get at both.

Part I: Your Organization’s Story

• Construct and frame a compelling narrative about your work
• Identify and map the stories already hiding inside your organization
• Adjust the framing for who’s listening – a legislator, a donor, or the wider community

Part II: Supporting Others to Tell Theirs

• Help the people your organization serves share their own experience
• Practice with other organizations in the room

Tuesday, September 15
9:30-11:30am
Community Partners Center, Colmar, PA

Who Is This For?

This workshop is open to Bucks-Mont Collaborative members and Tigris Foundation grantees. Space is limited to 30.

What You’ll Takeaway

• Learn how to identify and shape compelling stories that communicate your organization’s mission and impact.
• Practice adapting stories for different audiences and purposes while preserving the integrity of the story and honoring the storyteller’s voice.
• Gain practical strategies for supporting people with lived experience to share their stories authentically, respectfully, and effectively.
• Participants will leave with workshop handouts and slides.

Meet the Trainer

Kristen Rocha Aldrich is a nonprofit professional with over a decade of experience in program direction, primarily in the youth literacy space.

She is the founder of the Early Childhood Education Department at the New York Public Library. After serving as a member of the Cosmic Writers Advisory Board for several years, Kristen now serves the Cosmic Writers community by creating partnerships, programs, and strategies that bring equitable creative writing education to children around the country.

Kristen holds both a BA and an MA in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Part I – Our Blind Spots: Focuses on understanding bias and its effects on progress. Participants will explore how racial and social stereotypes influence implicit biases, promoting acceptance and reconstruction of these biases. Through interactive discussions and exercises, the program aims to provide tools for addressing race, racism, and gender biases while fostering respect, equity, dignity, and belonging.

Part II – Diversify Ourselves: Examines how our racial and cultural experiences influence our capacity to promote hope and healing during uncertain times. It highlights the significance of reflection in becoming trusted allies and enhancing community relationships. Through interactive discussions and exercises, participants will gain tools to confront race, racism, and gender biases while developing strategies for respect, equity, dignity, and belonging.

2 Parts | Wednesday, September 23, and Thursday, September 24
10:00-12:00pm
Zoom

Who Is This For?

All Nonprofit Professionals

What You’ll Takeaway

• Uncovering and restructuring implicit bias. Part I guides participants to recognize how underlying racial and social stereotypes shape automatic biases, providing actionable tools to deconstruct these blind spots and replace them with equity, dignity, and respect.
• Leveraging reflection to foster healing and allyship. Part II emphasizes how examining our own cultural and racial backgrounds empowers us to navigate uncertainty, build deeper community trust, and actively champion belonging as authentic allies.

Meet the Trainer

Sherry Wherry
Trauma Coalition Coordinator at Bucks-Mont Collaborative, Director of Mission Initiatives at YWCA Tri-County Area, and CEO/Founder and Empowerment Strategist of Wherry Consultations, LLC.

Collaborative Connections is our quarterly networking series designed to strengthen relationships across Bucks and Montgomery Counties. Join nonprofit and community leaders for meaningful conversation, resource sharing, and the opportunity to build connections that can support your work, your organization, and the communities we serve together.

This gathering will be hosted at Inward Bloom Wellness, offering a chance to connect and network in their beautiful wellness studio!

Whether you’re looking to meet new partners, reconnect with colleagues, share resources, seek advice, or simply invest in your network, we’d love to see you there.

Light refreshments will be provided.

September 23
4:00-5:30pm
Inward Bloom Wellness, Willow Grove, PA

Who Is This For?

All Nonprofit Professionals

Insurance is one of the most important tools nonprofits have to protect their people, programs, assets, and mission – but it can also be one of the least understood areas of nonprofit leadership.

This session will help nonprofit senior and executive leaders better understand the insurance coverage, risk management practices, and key decision points most relevant to nonprofit organizations. Through a moderated panel with insurance experts, participants will gain practical insights into common coverage gaps, emerging risks, cost pressures, claims considerations, and the questions leaders should be asking as they review their organization’s insurance needs.

This session is not about becoming an insurance expert. It is about knowing enough to ask stronger questions, identify potential gaps, and make sure your organization’s coverage keeps pace with your work.

Tuesday, September 29
12:00-1:00pm
Zoom

Who Is This For?

• Executive Directors, CEOs, and Senior Leadership
• Finance & Operations Professionals
• Human Resources Professionals

AI is already shaping nonprofit work, often before organizations have clear policies or shared expectations in place. This 3-session bootcamp will prepare 1 staff member from each participating organization to serve as an informed AI Champion.

Through practical, accessible learning, participants will explore responsible AI use, nonprofit applications, essential guardrails, and opportunities for thoughtful automation, with the goal to bring key insights and next-step questions back to their organization.

Mondays, October 12, 19, and 26
3:00-4:30pm
Community Partners Center, Colmar, PA

Who Should Attend?

• 1 staff member per organization | Max of 30 seats available.
• Participants should be curious about AI, trusted within their organization, and well-positioned to share what they learn with organizational leadership.
• Participants should be willing to attend all three sessions and serve as an internal resource as their organization has conversations about AI.
• This is not a technical training for IT specialists. It is a practical, accessible series for nonprofit staff who want to better understand what AI is, what it is not, where it may be useful, and what guardrails should be in place before it is used more broadly.

What You’ll Takeaway

• Session 1. AI Basics for Nonprofit Staff: What AI Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It Matters. This opening session provides a practical foundation in generative AI, including how it works, where it is already showing up in nonprofit work, and why organizational awareness matters.
• Session 2. Guardrails, Policy, and Responsible Use: Protecting People, Privacy, and Trust. This session focuses on the risks and responsibilities of AI use in nonprofit settings, especially where organizations handle sensitive client, donor, personnel, financial, or strategic information.
• Session 3. Practical Uses, Automation, and Becoming an AI Champion: Moving from Curiosity to Responsible Action. This final session will identify practical ways AI may support nonprofit work, while introducing automation concepts in an accessible, non-technical approach.
• Learning Tools:
  • Session Slides + Handouts
  • Post-Series Reflection Tools, Discussion Prompts, and Planning Questions for Your Organization to Support Early-Stage Discussions and Internal Planning.

Meet the Trainer

Jean Holmes
Founder, All Systems Go Consulting, LLC

Jean Holmes is the founder of All Systems Go Consulting, LLC. She brings more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, fundraising, communications, systems implementation, and practical AI adoption. Her training style is clear, grounded, and designed for real organizations that need useful tools, not hype.

Jean specializes in helping nonprofit teams bridge strategy, operations, and communication so new tools actually support the work instead of adding more noise.