The largest, most diverse gathering of community leaders and decision makers in the nation, the Whitney M. Young National Urban League Development Conference is designed to help participants discover how the nonprofit sector through collaborative leadership can increase its impact and influence over communities across the country.

It also gives attendees the opportunity to learn how organizations are maximizing and capitalizing on social entrepreneurship as a means of responding to the ever-growing needs of the community and changing trends in philanthropy and giving.

The yearly event features an engaging series of plenary sessions, informative concurrent training forums and numerous networking opportunities. Key issues to be covered will include: social entrepreneurship, economic development, health and quality of life, education and youth development, civic engagement, civil rights and social justice, best practices, knowledge transfer, innovation, accountability, sustainability and evidence-based outcomes. Attendees represent social services and community-based organizations, authorities and alliances, grassroots organizations, public health agencies, educational, governmental and research institutions, professional associations, consulting firms and industry.

This year's conference speakers and performers include: Pernessa Seale, president and founder of Balm in Gilead; Ted Shaw, head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; civil rights attorney Thomas N. Todd; Dr. Edison O. Jackson, president of Medgar Evers College; Dr. Joy Degruy Leary of Portland State University; Mr. Roland Warren of the National Fatherhood Initiative; and Dr. A. J. Robinson of the Children's Defense Fund

The event's plenary sessions will address: 1) the black male crisis in America; 2) HIV/AIDS in the urban community 25 years later; 3) social entrepreneurship as a vehicle of economic empowerment for nonprofit sustainability; and 4) the future of urban poverty in the United States. A town hall meeting at the end will discuss the future of collaborative leadership in the 21st century.

The conference, which is sponsored by Pfizer, Pepsico, Miller, Prudential Financial, AEC and UPS, will also include an R&B extravaganza promoting health and wellness featuring Jive Recording Artist Donnell Jones. And the annual Whitney M. Young awards gala will honor: Mayor and Mrs. David N. Dinkins for civic engagement; Thomas H. Todd for civil rights and social justice); Victoria Rowell for education and youth development); Dr. Beny Primm for health and quality of life; and Robert L. Johnson for economic and community development.

For more information visit www.nul.org/WMY2006Conference-Registration.html

About the Whitney M. Young Center of Urban Leadership The center seeks to foster positive social and economic change through the cultivation and development of leadership capabilities of individuals and organizations who serve disadvantaged communities.

About Whitney Moore Young, Jr. Whitney Moore Young, Jr., the fourth executive director of the National Urban League, brought the league into the civil rights arena, thereby meshing the tenets of Civil Rights activism with the practices of social work. On March 11, 1971 in Lagos, Nigeria, Young drowned while attending the third African/American dialogue between the two continents.