Name 

The Invisible Grid that Powers Community

Speakers

Cat Ward, Taproot Foundation

Dr. Megan Conway, Volunteer Canada

Description

Roads. Power lines. Broadband. We call them infrastructure because when they work, society moves — and when they fail, everything stops.

What about the systems that hold communities together?

Volunteering is critical social infrastructure — and most leaders don't think about it that way. It's the mechanism through which expertise reaches organizations that couldn't otherwise afford it, through which professionals build the cross-sector judgment that AI can't replicate, and through which communities develop the relational density that holds them together under pressure.

This session won't make the case for volunteering. It will make the case for investment, policy, and systems thinking at scale. Join two CEOs — one building this infrastructure in the U.S., one in Canada — to explore what it takes to fund, design, and sustain it for the demands of our time.