Call for Speaker Proposals 
ICF New England Annual Conference
June 2026

Proposal Guidelines

Thank you for considering Living Our Practice: Evolving with Presence and Purpose! We welcome your proposals for the 2026 ICF New England Conference, to be held on one of the first three Mondays in June, 2026, in Burlington, Massachusetts. Dates under consideration include June 1; June 8; or June 15 and dates will be confirmed in January.

In-person conferences are unique opportunities for experiential engagement that differ from online webinars and workshops. In that spirit, we seek innovative, interactive sessions in a variety of formats.  Please read the submission information carefully as we’re working with formats ranging from six to seventy-five minutes in length. 

We encourage everyone with ideas to submit a proposal! When considering your session, please tell us how you’ll incorporate experiential engagement, such as group work, demonstrations, participation, reflection/integration, role modeling, presentation, Q&A, etc. 

PLEASE NOTE: All submissions must include a video clip showcasing your content and presentation style–no professional video required!

The Basics:

*Your willingness to present is a gift to the coaching community, and we are grateful.
*Keynote Speakers will be compensated. 
*Please refrain from any overt marketing or sales during your presentations- let your expertise speak for itself.
*The conference team will showcase your expertise session through social media, our program guide, and conference materials.
*Your topic and contact information will be shared with other ICF Chapter leaders for consideration in their programming, if you desire. 

Successful Selection Information: 

Impact: Show how your session supports the big ideas of coaching presence, purpose, or integrate innovation into your presentation as appropriate. 
ICF & Theme Alignment: Ensure content connects to ICF Core Competencies and connects to the conference theme.
Engagement: Design an innovative, interactive session. Include specific engagement methods. 
Title: Use a short, compelling title (or a catchy opener plus a descriptive subtitle).
Participation: Balance content and audience interaction. Highlight how the in-person format enhances learning.
Relevance: If your topic is evolving (e.g., AI), explain how it will stay relevant by June 2026.
Audience: Please focus your session on a wide range of coaches, including new coaches, advanced coaches, or even the coaching-curious.
Presentation skill: Share a video showcasing your speaking style. Professional quality not required.

While additional consideration will be given to ICF credentialed coaches, we invite all presenters to consider submissions that support the coaching profession. We welcome diverse perspectives and underrepresented voices.

Proposal details

Conference Audience:

200+ professional coaches are expected to attend this conference, both in person and virtually. A broad range of coaches will be present, from beginner to highly experienced, “master” coaches. Attendees will be national, English-speaking, and some multi-lingual. Feedback from prior conferences reveals that attendees appreciate useful (able to apply tomorrow) interactive sessions, with hands-on exercises and reflection included. Networking and building community are fundamental conference goals—please consider ways you can support participant engagement and connection for hybrid attendees.

Conference Theme: Living Our Practice—Evolving with Presence and Purpose

We ask you to include conference theme content.  

• Living Our Practice – ICF NE created this overall conference theme for our first in-person event in 2024. Living Our Practice denotes our commitment to bringing coaches together in community to continuously strengthen our skills and broaden our networks. We aspire to offer content that supports our coaches to embrace authenticity and live out their practice in all aspects of their coaching journeys.


• Evolving with Presence and Purpose– As we celebrate our 30th Anniversary as an ICF Chapter, we intentionally paired the idea of forward motion and a future orientation with both coaching Presence and Purpose. We envision speakers interested in integrating these key ideas of Presence and Purpose with current and evolving methodologies. You may wish to address how you are experiencing artificial intelligence in your coaching practice, or perhaps inspire us to experiment with virtual or augmented reality to expand our reach.

Session Details: 

There will be a mix of session lengths, and we ask you to provide us your desired session length consideration.  As the conference comes together, we’ll communicate timing and format.  

While your ideas may influence our agenda design, current plans under consideration include:

• Traditional 75 and 60 minute keynote sessions (high interaction and engagement required)
• 20-40 minute breakout sessions (high interaction and engagement required)
• 6-minute laser style talks (slide deck driven content, low to no interaction)

New this year, our goal for the 6-minute laser style talks is to offer coaches the opportunity to share ideas or topics they are particularly passionate about. This presentation style has been around for a long time and features 20 slides that advance automatically every 20 seconds while you share your topic. Sometimes referred to as PechaKucha** talks, there are internet sites with great examples, and you may wish to search for PechaKucha on YouTube for live demos.

NOTE: Due to the tight timing requirements, laser style talk slide decks MUST be submitted to the conference one week before the start of the conference or the session will be scratched. 

Logistics:

• Room Capacity: Main conference room will accommodate over 200 people
• Break out rooms will accommodate 50-75 people 
• Standard Audiovisual Equipment provided. Presenters must provide their own laptops and cables to be available as needed (primarily as a “back up” if needed.)
• Presenters must submit slide decks at least one week prior to the conference.
• ICF New England Conference does not print handouts or make copies. 

Eligibility Requirements

• ICF Members in good standing and non-members as appropriate

Selection Process

Proposals will be reviewed by the Program Committee—a diverse, all-volunteer team of ICFNE coaches. You may be contacted for more information.  

Steps to Submitting a Proposal

STEP 1: Read the RFP in full. Contact @conference@icfne.org if you have any form or logistical questions. Contact coachcatherinefinger@gmail.com with any program content questions.

STEP 2: Complete the electronic form here.  When complete, click “Submit”. 

STEP 3: Receive a confirmation message. (If you believe you’ve submitted your proposal and do not get a confirmation message, please email @conference@icfne.org.) 

Submission Deadline

12:00 midnight ET (New York) on Monday, January 19, 2026.

No fees are required for submission.  We do rolling reviews. Early submissions are encouraged and may be given priority consideration.