Meet Our 2026 Fall Review Keynote Speaker: Eileen Flanagan
As communities across West Virginia confront new threats from data centers, transmission lines, fossil fuel development, and widespread environmental deregulation, many people are asking the same question: What can I do? Where do I fit in?
At this year’s Fall Review, keynote speaker Eileen Flanagan will help us explore those questions and better understand how each of us can contribute to meaningful social change.
About Eileen Flanagan
Eileen Flanagan is a Quaker author, speaker, activist, and nationally recognized nonviolence trainer. She is known for helping people make their activism more effective, strategic, and spiritually grounded.
Flanagan has played key leadership roles in three climate campaigns, including an effort that pressured a $4 billion-a-year bank to pause its financing of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Her work draws on decades of experience bringing people together, building effective movements, and helping activists remain grounded through difficult and prolonged struggles.
Her latest book, Common Ground: How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us from Our Illusion of Separation, explores how the ecological crisis reveals our deep connection to one another and the living world—and how recognizing that connection can inspire collective action.
Keynote Address
Saturday, Oct. 24, 7:15–8:15 p.m.
Flanagan’s keynote will bring together lessons from her experiences as an author, campaign leader, and movement trainer. At a time when environmental threats can leave people feeling isolated or overwhelmed, she will offer a hopeful and grounded perspective on how we can build connections, sustain our movements, and act together in defense of the places and communities we love.
The Four Roles of Social Change: Advocacy Training
Saturday, Oct. 24, 1–2:30 p.m.
Earlier in the day, Flanagan will lead an interactive training based on the Four Roles of Social Change.
Successful movements need people with different skills, perspectives, and approaches. Some work within institutions, some organize communities, some provide direct support, and others challenge unjust systems publicly. Tensions can arise when people favor different strategies, but those differences can also make a movement stronger.
This workshop will help participants:
- Better understand how social change happens
- Recognize the different roles people play within movements
- Identify their own strengths and place in the work
- Understand why advocates may choose different tactics
- See how different roles can complement one another
- Build stronger and more effective community coalitions
As new coalitions form throughout the Highlands and across West Virginia, this training will remind us that no single person or strategy can do everything—and that there is a meaningful place for everyone in the work ahead.
Join Us at the Fall Review
The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy’s 2026 Fall Review will take place Oct. 23–24 at Canaan Valley Resort State Park. In addition to Flanagan’s training and keynote address, the weekend will feature hikes, outdoor activities, presentations about WVHC’s work, a reception and silent auction, and a Saturday evening fundraising dinner.