On March 11, 2020, ELFA issued the following statement to ELFA members:

Dear ELFA Member:

As a precautionary measure due to concerns around the COVID-19 coronavirus, ELFA is making a number of changes to our April event schedule. We have been closely monitoring and evaluating the situation around COVID-19 and given the growing health concerns related to the virus, we felt it was necessary to make the following changes. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, but as always, the safety of our participants, community and staff are our priority and we believe these changes are in the best interest of everyone involved.

ELFA will be contacting all registered attendees, sponsors, speakers, exhibitors and planning committees shortly to provide more information regarding each of the following events:

• Women's Leadership Forum, scheduled April 20-21, will be postponed until later this year, subject to identifying a suitable date and location. All attendees will receive an email from ELFA shortly with details regarding the rescheduling of this event.
  
  
• 32nd Annual National Funding Conference, scheduled April 21-23, is cancelled as an in-person event and will proceed as virtual meetings. All attendees and funding sources will receive an email from ELFA shortly with details regarding the logistics and refunds for this event.
  
  
• Best Practices Roundtables, scheduled April 21, have been cancelled. All attendees will receive an email from ELFA shortly regarding refunds for these events. We are exploring the option of offering one or more webinars this spring—we will provide more information when it is available.
  
  
• Emerging Talent Networking Event, April 21, has been cancelled. All attendees will receive an email from ELFA communicating the cancellation.

Please note: All of these events were scheduled to take place at the Hilton Palmer House hotel in Chicago. If you need to cancel hotel reservations at the Hilton Palmer House, please call the hotel directly at (312) 726-7500 for assistance or locate your original email hotel confirmation.

Looking Ahead
We continue to monitor health professional advice and updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization regarding the COVID-19 coronavirus and follow the guidelines from these agencies and local health departments. We are evaluating all subsequent ELFA events and activities and will make any necessary modifications to our upcoming event schedule as needed to ensure the health and safety of our members, staff, vendors and others.

We will continue to share updates via our communication channels, including the ELFA website at www.elfaonline.org/events. For questions regarding upcoming ELFA events, please contact meetings@elfaonline.org.

Sincerely,
Ralph Petta
ELFA President and CEO