Philanthropy Leadership Lab
Friday, October 2, 2026
9:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M.
First 5 Santa Clara County
4000 Moorpark Ave
Suite #200
San Jose, CA 95117
Lead Facilitator:
Roger D. Ali, CFRE, Chair of AFP Global
Co-Facilitator:
Illyasha Peete, MBA, President of AFP Silicon Valley
About the Program
The Philanthropy Leadership Lab is a four-hour, immersive tabletop exercise for fundraising leaders. You will work through a single unfolding revenue crisis in role, as part of a small team, across three rounds, with a facilitator at your table throughout the experience.
The situation: MindWorks Youth Mental Health is a fictional Santa Clara County behavioral health provider serving approximately 4,000 young people each year with a $4.9 million annual budget and only two and a half months of operating coverage.
In eleven days, MindWorks loses roughly 15% of its annual revenue.
You are part of the development leadership team. The board meets in 21 days. Your table has four hours to produce a stabilization plan.
MindWorks is fictional, but its financial structure is based on Form 990 filings from comparable Santa Clara County organizations. The funder policies, contract terms, and regulatory constraints included in the exercise are real.
What You Will Practice
- Build a stabilization plan that identifies what gets protected, what gets reduced, and what stops, with reasoning you can defend to a finance committee.
- Judge which bridge-funding options are realistic and when the money will actually arrive, rather than when it is promised.
- Sequence difficult communication to staff, program partners, families, and funders under time pressure.
- Hold your position, or change it, while working with colleagues who have different information and different incentives.
How the Lab Works
You will be assigned a role on the development leadership team. Information arrives on a clock rather than all at once, and different people at your table know different things. That is deliberate.
The exercise unfolds across three rounds, with conditions changing between them. Your table will produce one stabilization plan on one page, present it to a two-person board panel seated at your table, and hear one other table's plan.
Tables present simultaneously throughout the room, so no one is asked to perform for the full group. The day concludes with a facilitated debrief and a written commitment for you to take with you.
Every table works through the same crisis and arrives somewhere different. The learning comes from comparing those decisions during the debrief.
Who Should Attend
This Lab is designed for development directors, chief development officers, executive directors, and senior gift officers who carry responsibility for revenue and participate in the rooms where difficult funding decisions get made. Board members responsible for finance or development are also welcome.
You do not need to have lived through a funding cut. You do need to be willing to make a call with incomplete information alongside people you have just met.
Who Is Leading the Lab
Roger D. Ali, CFRE
Chair of AFP Global
Lead Facilitator
Illyasha Peete, MBA
President of AFP Silicon Valley
Co-Facilitator
Roger and Illyasha will coach participants in the room while the exercise is underway, so feedback arrives while the decisions are still fresh.
The 2026 AFP Silicon Valley IDEA Fellowship cohort designed the case and will facilitate every table. Nine practitioners built the exercise around the constraints they work within themselves.
Agenda
9:00 A.M. | Doors Open
Coffee available
9:45 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. | Philanthropy Leadership Lab
Working lunch included
New to the case? Arrive at 9:00 A.M. to read the brief and get settled.
Already prepared? Come early to network with fellow participants.
CFRE Continuing Education
The Philanthropy Leadership Lab includes CFRE continuing education points.
What to Bring
Nothing is required. All Lab materials will be provided.
Bring a device if you prefer to take notes digitally.
Registration
Early Bird Pricing | Through September 7
$99 AFP Silicon Valley Members
$149 Future Members
$75 IDEA Fellowship Alumni
Standard Pricing | Beginning September 8
$129 AFP Silicon Valley Members
$179 Future Members
$75 IDEA Fellowship Alumni
Attendance is limited to 50 participants.
Every table has a dedicated facilitator, and that is what sets the capacity.
Registration closes October 2 or when the Lab reaches capacity, whichever comes first.
Bringing Your Team?
Teams of three or more participants from the same organization may register at the AFP Silicon Valley member rate, whether or not each participant is an AFP member.
Your team members will be seated at different tables. That is intentional. Each person will work through the same crisis with a different group and facilitator, producing different approaches to the same challenge. Your organization comes away with several perspectives rather than one.
Every registered team will also receive a short debrief guide before the Lab to help structure your follow-up conversation.
Up to four team-rate seats per organization are available while general registration remains open.
To arrange team registration or ask questions, contact:
Andrea Tsang, VP IDEA
vpidea@afpsv.org
V. Grijalva, VP-Elect IDEA
vpeidea@afpsv.org