This fall’s Legal Services Statewide Conference will offer attendees a focus on community, culture, and the work of legal aid as colleagues gather to reconnect, learn, and earn CLE credit. On Friday morning, November 8th, conference participants will join Dr. Johnanna Ganz, founder of J. Ganz Consulting, for “In Defense of Radical Hope: Fostering Change Through Interdependence and Possibility,” a candid conversation on the challenges facing our community-centered work and the dynamic responses available through radical hope, possibility, and interdependence.  Dr. Ganz will help participants think through how to cultivate vision with practical action based on learning, insights, and connections built throughout the conference.

In Dr. Ganz’s doctoral research, Johnanna studied occupational and organizational identity development in victim advocates and their agencies using quantitative and qualitative approaches. This research is the basis of the tools and trainings Johnanna uses to work in deep collaboration with mission-driven staff and leaders as they build their skills around healthy occupational identities and organizational cultures.

Dr. Ganz has served in a variety of mission-driven roles, particularly focused on ending gendered violence in local, state, territory, and national communities. Some of Johnanna’s prior roles include adjunct professor of Sociology and Women’s/Gender Studies, Domestic Violence Victim Advocate, Sexual Assault Response Team Leader, Systems Change Program Manager, Rural Projects Coordinator for a national training and technical assistance provider, and the Sexual Violence Justice Institute Director.

Stay-tuned for more information about this year’s conference, Bridging Worlds: Community, Culture, and the Work of Legal Aid, at Madden’s Resort on Gull Lake, November 6 - 8, 2024. Registration will open in mid-August.