Menu Close

Workshops and Sessions

The 25th Atlanta Black Pride

Atlanta, GA – August 30 – September 6, 2021

Request for Proposed Sessions/ Workshops

Deadline for Submission: June 30, 2021, Midnight Eastern Standard Time

Notification Process Begins on/after July 15, 2021

Atlanta Black Pride (ABP) invites you to submit a proposal for the 25th Atlanta Black Pride, which will be held August 30-September 6, 2021 in Atlanta, GA.

LGBTQ+ communities are targeted by a vicious and unrelenting Presidential administration determined to roll back all gains made in the areas of civil rights, healthcare, voting access, education, housing, food access and justice.

Session Proposals for Atlanta Black Pride

Three Types of Sessions: Sessions at Atlanta Black Pride either 60-minutes caucuses, 90-minute workshops, 2-hour Lunch and Learns. These sessions include movement-building, grassroots organizing, leadership development, organization building and educational opportunities for both new and seasoned leaders.

All sessions are scheduled for Friday, September 3,  2021. All sessions will be held at the official Atlanta Black Pride Host Hotel.

Read the below information thoroughly before submitting your proposal.

About Session Proposals and Choices

We seek and encourage session proposals that include and reflect the perspectives, needs, and priorities of our multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-abled, multi-faith, and multi-aged communities and movements.

The Atlanta Black Pride offers sessions that teach and train the essential skills to achieve social change.

Your proposal will address each of these elements:

  • Participant-centered and practice-oriented training
  • Knowledge, skill or attitude
  • Session format
  • Topic area

Practice and Participation

Each proposal will be reviewed to select sessions that best engage participants in learning and skills-building through participation and practice. Your proposal should be:

  1. Participant-Centered: We want you to provide training content that engages participants in every step of the process, utilizing experiential and participatory learning techniques wherever possible. Your session should not be a dry lecture or non-participatory panel presentation.
  1. “Real-World” Practice: We want to make sure that after learning a skill in your session, participants are given an opportunity to practice that skill. Real-world practice makes it much more likely that participants will use what they’ve learned when they get back home.

The committee discourages the submission of panel presentations unless there is an opportunity for substantive attendee participation in the dialogue. Proposals with more than three panelists are given the lowest priority.

Attitude, Knowledge or Skills

On the Request for Proposal form, you will be asked to choose the primary outcome or goal of your session. Is it to transmit information and build knowledge? Is it to increase and build a specific skill or skill set? Is it to change a settled way of thinking?

  1. Knowledge: Session is primarily for transmitting information, data, facts that increase activist and advocacy capacity. What information do we need? Ex.: data on discrimination experienced by LGBTQ+ youth for use in talking points, publications, activist/advocacy action planning.
  1. Skills: Session primarily hones specific skills needed to achieve activist and advocacy goals. How can we achieve our goals? Ex: skills to sharpen and refine persuasive messages used in activist/advocacy contexts; or skills needed to organize direct actions to resist the current administration.

Attitude: Session primarily leads to a change in a settled way of thinking or feeling about something, typically reflected in a person’s behavior. Can we change the way we think about something to build a more effective movement? Ex.: presentation about reproductive justice that explains interests and stakes of LGBTQ+ people and community as a result that reproductive justice is understood as an LGBTQ+ issue; or, a presentation about voter persuasion techniques to change votes.

Session Format

All Atlanta Black Pride workshops are training or prepared presentations with stated and specific learning objectives. These workshop sessions are teaching/learning sessions in which attendees gain useful information, skills, and technical assistance about a specific topic.

On the Request for Proposals form, you will be asked to choose one of these three formats for your proposed workshop.

  1. 60-minute Caucus. A time for affinity groups or people working on similar projects to gather and exchange ideas, network and build community or an opportunity to convene a group of interested participants to discuss a specific topic.
  1. 90-minute Workshop. These sessions are ideal for topics that can be effectively covered in 90 minutes and do not require extra time for small group breakouts.
  1. 2-hour Lunch and Learn. These sessions are ideal for advanced level training and workshops requiring additional time for attendee participation and lunch is served during the workshop.

Topic Areas

For Atlanta Black Pride 2021, the Committee especially seeks session proposals that address the following eight topic areas. These topic areas reflect critical community issues that have come forth in the context of the current Administration.

  • Campus Equality
  • Criminal and Social Justice Reform
  • Democracy and Civic Engagement
  • Economic Inequality and Poverty
  • Faith and Spirituality
  • Health Care Access
  • Mental Health Disparities
  • Non-Discrimination Protections
  • Young Black and Gay in America

All session proposals in any topic area should also reflect one or more of these LGBTQ+ justice frames:

  • Racial Justice;
  • Economic Justice;
  • Gender Justice inclusive of Trans/GNC people.

Please be explicit in your program book description language about how your session would address one or more of these justice frames.

While the Committee seeks proposals within the eight focus areas (**), you may submit a proposal on any topic listed below.

The Committee acknowledges that any proposed session may overlap two or more session topics; do your best to choose the topic area that you think most accurately represents your session. You will be able to select one (and only one) of these topic areas for your proposed session:

  • Aging and Ageism
  • Anti-Violence, including Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence
  • Art & Culture
  • Bisexual Community & Issues
  • **Campus Equality
    • College Campus Issues and Organizing for Students
    • College Campus Issues and Organizing for LGBTQ+ Administrators
  • Community Centers
  • Community Organizing
  • **Criminal Justice
  • **Democracy & Civic Engagement
  • Disability Justice
  • Domestic Violence
  • **Economic Inequality & Poverty
  • **Faith & Spirituality
  • Families
  • Fundraising/Resource Development
  • Gay Male Community & Issues
  • Gender Justice (inclusive of Transgender Justice)
  • **Health Care Access
  • History
  • HIV
  • Immigration International Issues Labor
  • Legislative/Policy Initiatives
  • Lesbian Community & Issues
  • Media, Communications, and Messaging
  • Mental Health
  • Military & Veterans Issues
  • Movement Building
  • **Non-Discrimination Protections
  • Organizational Development
  • Racial Justice
  • Religious Exemptions Legislation
  • Reproductive Justice Research and Policy Analysis Schools and Education, Grades K-12
  • Sexual Freedom
  • Surviving, Thriving, and Self Care
  • Workplace
  • **Young Black and Gay in America
  • Youth Empowerment

Proposal Review

Proposals received by Midnight on June30, 2021, will be reviewed and considered for scheduling. The deadline of Midnight, June 30, 2021, will not be extended. The Committee reserves the right to decline to review proposals received after this deadline.

The Committee will not review proposals for sessions that primarily promote or sell commercial products or promote or sell the commercial work product of an individual presenter.

Proposals are reviewed by Committee and outside experts in the topic area, you select. Considerations for selection include the relevance of the proposed session to the values and principles stated in this document, especially the Committee’s 2021 focus/topics listed above; depth of content; presenter qualifications/experience with the topic; overall strength of the submission; and proposals that reflect the Task Force’s commitment to the representation of race, gender, class, age and disability. The Committee reserves the right to reject proposals.

You will be notified by email of the status of your proposal beginning on or after July 15, 2021.

Presenter Responsibilities

Presenters are responsible for making their travel and hotel arrangements. You can reserve a room at the host hotel. The Atlanta Black Pride host hotel often sells out; we advise booking your room early. You may cancel your room reservation at the hotel 48 hours before your arrival to avoid additional charges.

Please indicate on the Proposal Submission Form if your session requires: an easel pad/markers set, an LCD projector and a screen. There is no additional charge for this equipment.

Special Notes About Your Proposal Submission

Please note: If you are the person submitting a proposal, you are automatically the “session contact.” Session contacts serve as the communication link between the Atlanta Black Pride staff and any and all other presenters for your session. On the proposal, you must provide complete contact information for each presenter and you must advise the Atlanta Black Pride staff of any changes in the presenter line-up if your proposal is selected.

If you are submitting a proposal for a session for which you are also a presenter, please provide your complete contact information in the box marked “Presenter One.”

We strongly recommend that you have a draft of your proposal prepared before going online to submit your proposal.

You will be notified by email of the status of your proposal beginning on or after July 15, 2021.

Thanks for reading this document! You’re ready to submit your proposal!

error: Content is protected !!
A note to our visitors

This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with changes to European Union data protection law, for all members globally. We’ve also updated our Privacy Policy to give you more information about your rights and responsibilities with respect to your privacy and personal information. Please read this to review the updates about which cookies we use and what information we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated privacy policy.