Best social justice and equity conferences in 2018

Who doesn’t love a good social justice conference? Inspo, healthy optimism, new friends?! We social justice conference groupies are in luck because 2018 is optimal for justice-themed conferences across the country.  Aside from the learning and knowledge-sponging that are bound to happen while you conference, the networking and connections you’ll make while attending will help you to grow both personally and professionally. And, you will feel far less alone when doing the challenging work of advancing equity.  I’m lucky that my organization provides a professional development budget which helps us to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities, so I put this list together to help out my rad colleagues (shout out to the team!) and they suggested sharing it with the world! Putting this out there: If you need help making the case for a professional development budget to your employer, let’s talk!

And now, a note and a disclaimer!

Note: This list is certainly not exhaustive. There are so many incredible convenings out there. Most of these conferences focus on racial and economic equity, and there’s at least one financial health-focused gathering for good measure.

Disclaimer: I haven’t attended all of these (I wish!). Feel free to reach out about any of them and we’ll connect you to someone who has attended if you want to learn more. And please add your favorite social justice conferences in the comment box so we can grow the list!

National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference
January 24 – 28, 2018
Washington DC

Center For Socially Responsible Business (CSRB) Conference at Mills College
March 9, 2018
Oakland, CA

White Privilege Conference
April 4 – April 7, 2018
Grand Rapids, MI

PolicyLink’s National Equity Summit
April 11 – 13, 2018
Chicago, IL

Greenlining Institute’s Economic Summit
May 24, 2018
Oakland, CA

Left Forum
June 1 – 3, 2018
New York City, NY

Center for Financial Services Innovation’s Emerge Forum
June 6 – 8, 2018
Los Angeles, CA

Allied Media Conference
June 14 – 17, 2018
Detroit, MI

New Economy Coalition’s CommonBound Conference
June 22 – 24, 2018
St Louis, MO

Netroots Nation
August 2 – 4, 2018
New Orleans, LA

Global Climate Action Summit
September 12 – 14, 2018
San Francisco, CA

Worker Cooperative National Conference by the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives & Democracy at Work Institute
September 14 – 16, 2018

COCAP (Community Capital)
Date TBA
Oakland, CA

Race Forward’s Facing Race Conference
November 8 – 10, 2018
Detroit, MI

Wellstone Action’s RootsCamp
Date and location TBA

Transform Finance Institute for Social Justice Leaders
Date and location TBA

Democracy Convention
Date and location TBA

And a 2019 bonus…

International Drug Policy Reform Conference
November 6 – 9, 2019
St Louis, MO

Emma is the Strategic Communications Director at Beneficial State Foundation based in Oakland, CA.

This blog post reflects the author’s personal views and opinions. It does not represent the views and opinions of Beneficial State Bank and/or Beneficial State Foundation.