Events & Webinars

A frank, practitioner-led briefing on the full threat landscape for HNWI donors and family foundations — from two people who have run government investigations.

What's Changed Since April

• A new FBI–IRS joint initiative expanding nonprofit targeting scope
• 150+ climate organizations under FARA scrutiny, with nearly $2B in foreign funding flagged
• 37+ active congressional investigations, up from 32 at our last briefing
• DAF providers blocking grants based on indictments alone — no court ruling required
• 4 bills advanced by House Ways & Means targeting fiscal sponsors, foreign funding, and democracy grantmaking
• HNWI donors freezing or retreating — and what that signals for what comes next

What You'll Walk Away With

1. Whether your clients are already in a target file, and what the enforcement architecture looks like across every active front right now
2. How to tell political pressure from genuine legal exposure — and why conflating them creates the paper trail investigators need
3. What the four House Ways & Means bills mean for fiscal sponsorship structures, international funding, and democracy grantmaking, before any become law

Featured Speakers

Leslie Gross — Founder, Advantage Insights; P150 Member. Former Chief Oversight Counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Obama Administration).

D. Michael Stroud, Jr. — Partner, Taft Law, Public Affairs Strategies Group. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs & Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Former Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security.

45 minutes plus Q&A.

Coordination, Not Chaos — What Changed in August, and What the Post-Recess House Calendar Means Next

Back by request, following our August 6 briefing. A frank, practitioner-led update on every front, from two people who have run government investigations — this session picks up where the last one left off, with a specific eye toward what August's administrative implementation means for boards heading into September.

What's Changed Since August 6

• FEMA has operationalized the NSPM-7 domestic-terrorism priority inside FY26 homeland security grant awards — direct implementation, not just policy language.
• The State Department has internationalized the political-terrorism agenda, convening a ministerial on cooperation, designations, and financial measures.
• The en banc D.C. Circuit upheld relief for Climate United on August 4 — but a stay keeps GGRF funds practically unavailable through at least November 9.
• Treasury/IRS's RIN 1545-BS05 remains under OIRA review, with no public text yet — still a "monitor," not a live restriction.

What You'll Walk Away With

1. What the IRS's two new §4945(g) determinations reveal about the grant-procedure controls regulators actually accept, and how to benchmark your own grant files against them.
2. How FEMA's NSPM-7 implementation and the State Department's political-terrorism agenda are converging into a single, cross-agency posture, and what that means if your grantees touch federal funding, policing, or civic-expression work.
3. What the post-recess House calendar means for H.R. 9721 and related bills, and how to read the Climate United stay as a funding-continuity problem to manage now, not only a legal question to wait out.

Featured Speakers

Leslie Gross — Founder, Advantage Insights; P150 Member. Former Chief Oversight Counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Obama Administration).

D. Michael Stroud, Jr. — Partner, Taft Law, Public Affairs Strategies Group. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs & Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Former Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security.

Tuesday, September 9, 2026 · 2:30 PM ET · 45 minutes plus Q&A.

View the event flyer

AI You Fund, AI You Use: The Two Responsibilities of the Modern Philanthropist

Part 1 of a 3-part governance series. As a donor or foundation, you have two distinct responsibilities when it comes to AI: as a user, adopting it internally without eroding equity or community voice; as a funder, shaping how AI develops through where your capital goes. This session names both and gives you a framework for holding them together.

You'll walk away able to:

• Distinguish your "user" responsibilities from your "funder" responsibilities
• Recognize how AI can deepen inequities in grantmaking, and apply equity guardrails
• Understand the landscape of values-aligned AI funding
• Draft your own personal "AI giving stance"

Takeaway: A "Two Responsibilities" self-assessment worksheet mapping your user-side and funder-side posture.

Free session. 60 minutes.

The Fiduciary's Guide to AI: Governance, Risk, and Duty for Foundation Boards and Donors

Part 2 of our 3-part governance series. This session reframes "should we use AI?" from an IT question into a board-level fiduciary duty question — including your legitimate right to decline — and covers the compliance ground that's easy to overlook: donor-data privacy, IP and copyright of AI outputs, and vendor model-training clauses.

You'll walk away able to:

• Frame AI adoption as a governance and fiduciary decision
• Apply a three-dimension model — organizational, ethical, technical — to your own foundation
• Identify core compliance exposures: donor-data privacy, AI-output IP/copyright, and vendor model-training clauses
• Leave with a starter AI governance policy and a board-level discussion guide

Takeaway: A one-page AI Governance Checklist for Trustees, plus an editable policy template.

Free session. 60 minutes.

Compliance content is educational, not legal advice, and should be validated with qualified counsel.

From Curiosity to Policy: Two hours to build a first-draft, board-ready AI policy for your foundation or the families you advise.

Part 3 of our 3-part governance series. Most foundations already use AI, but very few have written down the rules. Almost two-thirds of foundations and nonprofits report using AI, yet 98% of foundations have no policy on whether grantees may use it. Courts judge board decisions by the process behind them, so a written policy is the evidence that trustees acted with care. This session turns that principle into language a board can vote on.

Five Building Blocks, Drafted Step by Step

1. Acceptable use
2. Data limits
3. Accountability
4. Transparency
5. Vendor requirements

This is a working session, not a lecture. For each building block, we cover the rule and why it matters to a fiduciary, then you draft it live using guided sentence starters. Come with one foundation in mind: your own, or a client's.

What You'll Leave With

• A first-draft AI policy built on a 12-section template, with your own language in the sections that carry the most risk
• A risk-tier guide separating everyday drafting from grant decisions AI should never make
• A data rule you can adopt the same day: what never goes into an unapproved tool
• Three non-negotiable vendor terms and a contract checklist for every AI purchase
• A 90-day path to board adoption, from interim rule to a fixed review date

Who Should Join

Donor advisors, members of family foundations and their boards, and individual donors who want AI governance that holds up to scrutiny.

Facilitator

Leslie Gross, Founder, Advantage Insights. Former Chief Oversight Counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Thursday, October 22, 2026 · 2:00 to 4:00 PM ET · Live on Zoom. Register to receive your personal join link by email. Live only; not recorded.

Paid working session. 2 hours.

View the event flyer

Survey figures: Center for Effective Philanthropy, AI With Purpose (2025), surveys of foundation and nonprofit leaders, April to May 2025. This session provides educational policy information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Confirm any policy with qualified counsel before board adoption.