Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons, Families & Friends is an international nonprofit powered largely by volunteers. We are beginning planning for our 2027 Annual Conference and want to establish a professional, implementation-ready conference plan before transitioning day-to-day production and execution to a contracted event planner.
Our annual conference brings together LGBTQ+ people, current and former Latter-day Saints, families, friends, allies, community leaders, speakers, and volunteers for connection, education, support, and community building.
Producing the conference requires coordination across programming, speakers, budgeting, logistics, registration, communications, technology, accessibility, volunteers, attendee experience, vendors, and event production. We have experience producing conferences and have previous conference materials and organizational knowledge to build upon, but much of our planning has historically depended on volunteer leadership and institutional knowledge.
We are seeking an experienced conference or event-management professional to help us translate that experience into a comprehensive planning framework that can guide the 2027 conference and be handed off efficiently to a contracted event planner for implementation.
The consultant does not need to be LGBTQ+ or Mormon. We welcome professionals who support Affirmation's mission and are comfortable working with a diverse, international community.
By the end of the project, Affirmation will have a comprehensive, implementation-ready planning package for the 2027 Annual Conference that can be approved by organizational leadership and transitioned to a contracted event planner for execution.
Working with Affirmation leadership, the pro bono consultant will develop:
• A master conference project plan, timeline, milestones, dependencies, and critical deadlines.
• A planning structure defining workstreams, responsibilities, decision points, and organizational approvals.
• A conference budget framework and planning assumptions.
• Workflows for programming, speakers, registration, communications, volunteers, accessibility, technology, attendee experience, vendors, and event production.
• Venue, vendor, technology, and production requirements.
• A volunteer and staffing needs plan.
• A risk, contingency, and event-readiness framework.
• An initial run-of-show framework and reusable planning tools.
• A handoff brief identifying completed planning, outstanding decisions, priorities, deadlines, and next steps for the contracted event planner.
Success means Affirmation can engage a contract event planner with a clear scope and an organized conference plan rather than asking the contractor to build the planning process from the ground up. The consultant would ideally participate in a final handoff session with Affirmation and the implementation team.