Leading While the Work Hurts with Johnanna Ganz, Ph.D.

A full day leadership development training about understanding and responding to moral injury as organizational leaders.
About this Event

Intended for Executive Directors, Senior Leaders, or other high level leaders in significant decision making roles of not-for-profit or governmental organizations.

Are you and your staff exhausted, overwhelmed, feeling like you have lost the guiding force of your values when it comes to serving the community? If so, you are not alone! Human service leaders and staff are facing increased pressures to make impossible choices, are unable to serve the most vulnerable in our community due to imposed policies and funding, or “playing nice” with systems that are harming the communities you serve. Many describe the impacts they are experiencing as burnout when in reality the underlying cause may actually be Moral Injury.

“Moral injury is the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress one’s own moral beliefs, values, or ethical codes of conduct.” (The Moral Injury Project)

Join this leadership specific orienting session to When the Work Hurts. This session is designed to facilitate leaders through creating structural supports for managing and responding to moral injuries as people and as those responsible for others. Silence, blame, or ignoring the conditions causing moral injury does not stop or heal it. However, building an action-oriented, values-driven community does. Come ready to learn, to share, and practice replicable actions that put us in closer connection and commitment to one another for the long haul.
About the Presenter:
Johnanna Ganz, Ph.D., (name/they) is a systems-thinking, data-focused pragmatist who looks for opportunities to turn theory and ideas into action. As the founder of J. Ganz Consulting, LLC, Johnanna’s passion lies in increasing the sustainability of mission-driven agencies and their people through skills-based education and coaching. In their doctoral research, Johnanna studied occupational and organizational identity development in victim advocates and their agencies using quantitative and qualitative approaches. Since then, Johnanna has used this research to develop tools and trainings to work in deep collaboration with mission-driven staff and leaders as they build their knowledge and skills around sustainable occupational identity management and practices of liberatory organizational cultures. Johnanna approaches every project and relationship with the philosophy of, “Let’s do better, together.”

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, 3 Systems Change Program Manager, Rural Projects Coordinator for a national training and technical assistance provider, and the Sexual Violence Justice Institute Director. Johnanna has also had the privilege of serving as a grant reviewer for the Office on Violence Against Women (2020-2024), an adjunct faculty of Hamline University in the Social Change and Social Justice Department (Fall 2022), a member of the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Alliance on Crime (2021-2022), and the Advocacy Policy Subcommittee Chair for the National Taskforce on Advocate Wellness (2023-present).

Light morning refreshments will be on offer and lunch will be provided - choose your sandwich option while paying for your registration. Lunch is a box including a medium sandwich, chips, a bottle of water, and a cookie.

This event is in-person only.

Masks are optional at in-person events.
Any requests for needed accommodations to fully participate must be made by 10/12/26.
All registration sales are final.

Thank you to the Health Foundation of Western & Central NY and to the Park Foundation in Ithaca for their financial support allowing us to provide this critical program with minimal cost to those in our community.
This opportunity is offered as part of the IMPACT Capacity Building Program of HSC.