SAVE THE DATE  |  REGISTRATION OPENING IN JUNE

Disinformation reshapes public discourse, erodes trust, and influences decision-making—but how does it take hold, and what makes it so effective? This event invites nonprofits, funders, elected officials, and communication professionals to explore these questions together.

Through expert insights and regional case studies, we’ll examine:

• The pathways and funding behind disinformation campaigns.
• Their impact on community cohesion and democratic processes.
• Lessons from Maine and beyond about resilience and truth-sharing.

The conversation won’t end with presentations. After learning together there will be an open discussion to reflect on what we’ve heard and collectively consider how—or whether—to move forward together. Your perspective will shape what comes next. Join us to learn, connect, and help chart a path toward a more informed future.

If you would like to join the event planning committee, sponsor this event, or have suggestions for presenters, case studies, or content, please reach out to Tyler Kidder.

Featured Speaker

Colin Woodard, Project Director, Nationhood Lab

Colin Woodard is the Project Director of the Nationhood Lab, based at Salve Regina University's Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. The Nationhood Lab is an interdisciplinary research, writing, testing and dissemination project focused on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the centrifugal forces threatening the federation’s stability.

Colin is a New York Times bestselling historian and Polk Award-winning journalist – is one of the most respected authorities on North American regionalism, the sociology of United States nationhood, and how our colonial past shapes and explains the present. Compelling, dynamic and thought provoking, he offers a fascinating look at where America has come from, how we ended up as we are, and how we might shape our future. Author of the award-winning Wall Street Journal bestseller American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Woodard has written six books, including The Republic of Pirates– a New York Times bestselling history of Blackbeard’s pirate gang that was made into a primetime NBC series with John Malkovich and Claire Foye – and Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, which tells the harrowing story of the creation of the American myth in the 19th century, a story that reverberates in the news cycle today.

A POLITICO contributing editor, Woodard was state and national affairs writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, where he received a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.

He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a past Pew Fellow in international journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies. He received the 2004 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Public Advocacy and in 2014 was named one of the country’s best state capitol reporters by the Washington Post and journalist of the year by the Maine Press Association. He lives in Maine.