I have the great pleasure of serving as the member of the advisory group for the Boston Foundation's "What's Next?" seminar series, and on Thursday evening attended a session that focused on "Boundary Crossers:  A New Leadership."

This is a congenial topic for me, since in my professional life I strive to hold hands with both the technologists and the nonprofit/philanthropic professionals, helping them to build bridges across the chasm that divides them. 

Charlotte Kahn, Jennifer Owens, and Sheri Lapatin of the Boston Foundation have been working hard to bring a diverse group into the dialogue at the "What's Next? seminars, and have also encouraged me to do some outreach in inviting new attendees, and naturally I live for opportunities such as this one.

I was delighted to see a good turnout of Boston Technobabes and members of the Boston 501 Tech Club, along with plenty of others who were attending a "What's Next?" seminar for the first time. 

At the end of the seminar session, Charlotte Kahn announced that Charlotte, Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation, and I have been in discussion about creating an online center to help support civic engagement in Massachusetts.  Naturally, this idea inspires the enthusiasm of Technobabes and 501 Tech Club members - but I was also thrilled to find that a number of non-techies that I had never met before took this opportunity to introduce themselves and let me know of cool online tools that ought to be considered for this project.

In recruiting a diverse pool of new civic leaders, we needn't look exclusively at members of the rising generation, but it would certainly be a mistake to leave them out.  And if we want to engage this cohort, we need to meet them where they are. More and more, that place is online. Building an online civic action center for our region is not a magic solution, but I think that it is a necessary one and one that will help many potential civic leaders cross the boundary from reading about (and discussing) issues online to becoming involved on a face-to-face basis.


Boundary Crossers:  A New Leadership
 What's Next Seminar
 The Boston Foundation
 Thursday, July 21st, 2005


 Initial participants:

 Joel Barrera, Project Director, Metro Mayors Coalition-MAPC, Founder, Commonwealth Legislative Seminar

 Lindsay Hyde, Executive Director, Strong Women, Strong Girls

 Hazel Kim, Director of Community Relations, John Hancock Financial Services, Regional Chapter Co-Chair, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy

 Dumisani Nyoni, Coordinator, Pioneers of Change,
 Secretary to the Board, TakingITGlobal.org


Facilitators:

Sayra Pinto, Executive Director, Twin Cities Latino Coalition

Mia Roberts, Chief Operating Officer, Big Sister Association of Greater Boston



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