Co-Create the Storytelling of the 14th Annual Tom Tom! Each year, Tom Tom is built with the community. Through our 2026 Conference Creator , we invite you to help shape the sessions, speakers, and stories that will define this year’s Festival. Together, we’ll explore how technology, business, democracy and society intersect to shape the future of our communities — and how creativity and collaboration can drive real progress. This April 22-26, our Festival theme is COURAGE .  

At the 2025 EVOLVE Conference during the 13th Annual Tom Tom Festival, City of Promise and African American Teaching Fellows co-hosted the Education Innovator Summit—a multi-sector convening focused on how Charlottesville can treat education as a shared community responsibility. The cornerstone of the Summit was the understanding that community safety and education are deeply connected. When kids are safe—when their needs are met—they learn. And when kids learn, the whole c

Charlottesville is home to more than 700 nonprofits, many dedicated to helping people rebuild their lives after incarceration. Often, however, these efforts operate in silos. The Reentry Summit—a collaboration between the Fountain Fund, Equal Justice USA, the Charlottesville Area Justice Coalition, and the Tom Tom Foundation—set out to change that by bringing together local leaders, service providers, and community members to create a more coordinated, compassionate, and conn