The Heart of America Grant Professionals Association invites you to attend our upcoming membership meetings. In 2025, all meetings will be held on the 3rd Wednesday of every month from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. unless stated otherwise.
Meetings are free for members of GPA and AFP, $10 for non-members.
Upcoming Meetings
Kristin Raack
May 21, 2025 | Noon – 1pm: Bravery & Belonging: DEIAB Essentials for Grant Professionals – Kristin Raack, CFRE, GPC
Kristin Raack is Founder & Principal of AltruNext, a firm that helps nonprofits flourish. She partners with NPOs to improve their health, achieve their missions, and increase their sustainability. In this session, Kristin will show us how traditional DEI activities are not enough. In fact, the very concept of “DEI” is not inclusive enough: we should add “Accessibility” and “Belonging” to fully address the systems of oppression and devaluation of specific identities (DEIAB). DEIAB work can feel scary– no one wants to make a misstep and offend others. However, the only way we can create change is by wrestling with our questions, our history, and our beliefs. Learning in community is powerful and provides accountability as we begin to apply these practices together. Participants in this session will receive a toolkit of resources they can use to continue their learning after the session.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Kristin Raack, CFRE, GPC, is Founder & Principal of AltruNext, a firm that helps nonprofits flourish. She has worked in the nonprofit sector for 25 years and has broad-ranging experience: grants, organizational assessments, annual funds, major gifts, capital campaigns, and strategic plans. Kristin serves on the DEI Committee of Capital Campaign Pro and is committed to fostering radical belonging.
REGISTER HERE! Your name will be entered in a drawing for $100 off a GPA membership OR $100 toward the 2025 GrantSummit in Baltimore!
June 18, 2025 | Noon – 1pm: An Insider’s Look at Donor-Advised Funds and the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation – Sarah Forgey and Mariah Roady
Sarah Forgey
Sarah Forgey and Mariah Roady, Greater Kansas City Community Foundation Philanthropic Advisors, will be presenting “An Insider’s Look at Donor-Advised Funds” and talk to us about the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and offer regional perspectives. This is your opportunity to learn how donor-advised funds work, common misconceptions, and helpful tips as well as other nonprofit resources to help your organization.
Mariah Roady
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Sarah Forgey is a Senior Philanthropic Advisor for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation where she works with individuals, families, and other foundations to support and plan their grantmaking. Prior to joining the Community Foundation in 2016, Sarah worked for AmeriCorps and the Minnesota Council of Churches, Refugee Services program. Mariah Roady brings nearly a decade of nonprofit leadership experience to the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. Most recently specializing in fund development, communications, and community engagement, she is driven to support Kansas City’s nonprofit and charitable giving landscape. In her current Philanthropic Advisor role, Mariah supports donors by providing exceptional charitable giving experiences and helping nonprofits build their long-term assets. Also named a 2023 Kansas City Business Journal NextGen Leader and elected to serve Center School District’s Board of Education, Mariah is deeply rooted in investing in people, ideas, and communities.
GPC COMPETENCIES: Competency 1: Researching, identifying, and matching funding resources to meet specific needs. Competency 6: Methods that cultivate and maintain relationships between fund-seeking organizations and funders.
REGISTER HERE! Your name will be entered in a drawing for $100 off a GPA membership OR $100 toward the 2025 GrantSummit in Baltimore!
July 18th, 2025 | 7:30 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. – Regional Conference – Children’s Mercy Hospital – Kansas City, MO – GRANT CON: Unmasking the Power of Grants
Join the Heart of America Chapter at the Children’s Mercy Research Institute in Kansas City, Missouri for a day of growth, development, and fellowship with your grant colleagues & celebrate our chapter’s 20th anniversary! The full-day conference will provide 10 breakout sessions led by prominent experts in grant writing, plus a keynote presentation by John Hall, and award-winning storyteller, human development coach, and Chief Sales Officer at Crux-Xcelerate. For more information about conference sessions, click here!
August 20, 2025 | Noon – 1pm: Unlocking Census Bureau Data With data.census.gov – Tyson Weister, Data Dissemination Specialist, U.S. Census Bureau
U.S. Census Bureau data are foundational in writing successful grant applications, and it is critical that grant professionals stay up to-date with the latest skills for accessing new data. Join this session to learn how to access data for geographies throughout Kansas and Missouri using the latest version of data.census.gov, the official site to access data from the 2020 Census, American Community Survey, and other popular surveys and programs. Through a series of live demonstrations, you will learn tips and tricks to navigate the data platform, find tables, download data, and create maps.
Registration link available soon! Your name will be entered in a drawing for $100 off a GPA membership OR $100 toward the 2025 GrantSummit in Baltimore!
September 16, 2025 | 8am – 12pm: Fall Funder’s Forum! More information to come!
October 2025 | GPA Grant Summit in Baltimore! More information to come!
November 19, 2025 | Remind Me Again, I’ve Slept Since Then. More information to come!
December 17, 2025 | Heart of America’s Annual Community Service Project! More information to come!
Past Meetings
April 16, 2025: Sustainability and the Meaning of Life
March 19, 2025: Grant Management in 30 Days
February 21, 2024: Love your GPA Membership!
October 18, 2023: 2023 Fall Funders Forum – joint program with AFPKC
August 31, 2023: Meeting Funders Face to Face
June 29, 2023: On Second Thought: NEW Ways to Approach OLD Grant Questions
April 27, 2023: Ethics Bingo: Great School and Heart of America Style
February 23, 2023: Pursuing Federal Grants: What to know about the FY23 Budget
December 7, 2022: Annual Meeting and Holiday Party
October 19, 2022: Funders Forum – joint program with AFPKC
August 18, 2022: Beside Ourselves: What Can Grant Pros Learn from Other Career Field?
June 16, 2022: How the Other Half Lives: Experiences of In-House and Consulting Grant Pros
April 21, 2022: Collaboration: The Key to Great Success
February 17, 2022: A Panel Discussion on Leveraging the Benefits of the GPC
December 16, 2021: Annual Meeting and Holiday Party
August 19, 2021: Writing Workshop and Peer Feedback.
April 22, 2021: Being Agile in Your Grant Application Process
February 18, 2021: Using Grant Budgets to Guide Prospecting and Programming
December 17, 2020: Annual Meeting and Holiday Party
October 21, 2020: Funders Roundtable
August 20, 2020: The Nuts and Bolts of Grant Writing
April 16, 2020: Managing Up – Virtual Zoom Meeting
February 20, 2020: Ethics 101
December 12, 2019: Annual Meeting and Holiday Party
October 16, 2019: AFP/GPA Funders Roundtable
August 15, 2019: Grant Management Solutions: Which is Right for You?
June 20, 2019: What Else is there to Sustainability?
April 18, 2019: A Deep Dive into the Federal RFP.
February 21, 2019: Nonprofit Accounting – What the Grant Professional Needs to Know.
December 13, 2018: Annual Meeting
October 18, 2018:The Funders Roundtable, co-sponsored by the Mid-America Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals
August 16, 2018: Evaluation 101
June 15, 2018: Bi-Annual Regional Grants Conference
April 19, 2018: Battle Burnout for Grant Pros (Presented by Thom Fox, Grants Manager – Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas)
February 15, 2018: Where Do I Go From Here? Career Ladders for Grant Professionals (Presented by Susan Whitmore of FirstCallKC, Megan Campbell of Child Abuse Prevention Association, & Theresa Reyes-Cummings, MPA, GPC, of Jackson County Community Health Fund)
December 14, 2017: Annual Meeting
August 17, 2017: Finding and Using Data to Create Strong Proposals
June 15, 2017: Meet the Funders
April 20, 2017: More than Just a Grant Writer
December 15, 2016: Annual Meeting
June 16, 2016: Theory of Change and the Logic Model
April 28th-29th, 2016: Regional Conference 2016 “Fifty Shades of Grants: Grant Writing Down and Dirty”
February 18, 2016: Text! Data! Word Clouds! Infographics! What Funders Think of Graphics in Grants
June 18, 2015: Back to Basics: Crafting the Need Statement
April 23, 2015: Advancement Opportunities for the Grant Professional
February 19, 2015: Lessons Learned from the GPA National Conference,
Scholarship Recipients’ Conference Presentations and Facilitated Small Group Break Out Topics
August 20, 2015: Back to Basics: Facilitated Small Group Break Out Topics and Exchange of Best Practices
October 22, 2015: Funders’ Forum
Many sessions are eligible for continuing education credits (CEUs) from CFRE and https://grantprofessionals.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1626704&group=.