Upcoming MNEA Events

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• July Community of Practice

  • When
    15 Jul 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
  • Location
    Virtual

  Register

  

  Please join MNEA's Community of Practice (CoP), a bi-monthly virtual event prioritizing knowledge sharing, problem solving, innovation, and collective growth.

  Open Space Technology: A Participatory Methodology for Evaluators Seeking to Support Meaningful Engagement and Learning Across Systems

  This MNEA Community of Practice (CoP) meeting will be a deep dive into Open Space Technology (OST). OST is a participatory methodology that has been applied in multiple contexts and convenings to help create space and time for groups large and small to focus on what matters and move towards action informed by collective power and wisdom of the group. 

  Sometimes OST is referred to as an "unconference" this CoP meet-up is designed to help share this potent methodology and help MNEA members prepare for our upcoming September 10^th MNEA Unconference where we will be leveraging this methodology to inquire into what our statewide evaluation field needs in these times of great uncertainty.  

  You will leave this session with a better understanding of when and where to utilize Open Space Technology in your evaluation practice, how to be an informed participant in the upcoming MNEA Unconference this fall, and additional resources for more learning and practice with this participatory methodology. 

  We look forward to seeing you!

  

  Katie Boone, Qualitative Researcher and Community Engagement Coordinator, Economic Assistance and Employment Supports, Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Katie has over 20 years of experience working in and with communities. She is an integrated practitioner whose work is grounded in experiences from the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter, as a certified Narrative Coach / Integrated Developmental Practitioner, and a deep Regenerative Practitioner. Her roots are in community building and designing collaborative and transformative systems change. 

  Bringing her lived experience as a teen mom, Katie believes in and has witnessed the power of story and lived experience from communities who are most impacted by inequity to transform more just policies and practices for all families to thrive. She seeks opportunities to design and implement experiential and developmental learning that builds the capabilities of people seeking to make transformative change. This is her calling: value driven work that is rooted in equity and community. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Leadership, policy Development and Evaluation Studies at the University of Minnesota.

  Cost of the event: Free for members, $5 for non-members
  

  If you need any accommodations to participate, please let us know at least one week prior to the event. Thank you.

  
  

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• Evaluation (Un)Filtered: An Unconference for Unprecedented Times

  • When
    10 Sep 2025
  •  
    8:30 AM - 3:30 PM
  • Location
    Wilder Foundation, 451 Lexington Parkway N., St. Paul, MN 55104 Auditorium A-D, Rondo Dining room
  • Spaces left
    120

  Register

  Join us for MNEA’s 2025 statewide conference, Evaluation (Un)Filtered: An (Un)Conference for Unprecedented Times. We know many of our friends, colleagues and professional partners in the field have been impacted by the changes that have been happening at the federal level. Jobs have been lost. Data has been erased. What is clear is that our relationships and connections to one another matter in these times. We see the opportunity for the evaluation field to come together to have the conversations that we, as a membership community, need to have now in order to understand where we are heading next. 

  What this is:
  This UnConference is a place for all voices to be lifted up, a space and time to connect, coming together to learn and grow in the service of what this present moment requires from us as we explore what this means for the uncertain present and future for our field. Elders have said, “we are the ones we have been waiting for,” and as a field of evaluation here in Minnesota and beyond - we invite you to participate in engaging in the conversations we need to have now in order to find our next steps as we move forward.  

  If there is pre-reading or materials to send in advance for this event, please include links below or email them as attachments to the program co-chair you are in contact with. 

  • Open Space Overview 

  • Open Space Intro Video
    (Note: MNEA board members leading an event can attach materials in their email to the communications team. Links can be included here in this document.)

  If you need any accommodations to participate, please let us know at least one week prior to the event. Thank you.

  
  

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