Place Leadership Network: philanthropic and policy investment in equitable public realm
As Boston’s neighborhoods rapidly transform under housing pressures and rising tides, public spaces — and the vital social infrastructures they sustain — are threatened. From Boston’s historic Chinatown to Afrocentric Nubian Square, community leaders are grappling with keeping the shared spaces of the city vibrant and inclusive.
Centered around monthly peer-learning sessions, the Place Leadership Network convened community leaders who champion the public interest in their neighborhoods.
Serving as a fellow at the Boston Foundation, I launched an equitable placemaking initiative to invest philanthropic and policy resources into community groups that champion the public interest in the design, activation, and stewardship of the public realm. In partnership with the Harvard Graduate School of Design, we developed a yearlong peer-learning program that convened and funded a cohort of place-based organizations throughout the region. We shared ideas and practies, commiserated, hosted more than forty guest speakers and facilitators, leveraged $435,000 in funding, and, at least on one occasion, danced in each other’s arms. With an expanded capacity and a growing solidarity, this cohort is now leading transformative policy and placekeeping projects in their communities.
Along with community leaders who participated in the Place Leadership Network, I was gratified to share lessons with the field via a policy forum at the Boston Foundation, panel discussion at the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities annual conference, a funders roundtable hosted by Philantrhopy Massachusetts, a public discussion at Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and other venues.
Our plucky place-based experiment has been profiled in Next City, Inside Philanthropy, and by the Brookings Institution.
As an outgoing fellow, I also shared lessons — personal and professional — gleaned from this challenging and promising work in a summary report.