Boston – The Boston Foundation is proud to announce the fifteen Greater Boston community leaders who comprise the 2021-2023 class of Boston Neighborhood Fellows. Fellows take part in a two-year program designed to harness the collective power, expertise and knowledge that they bring through their immersive work throughout many of Greater Boston’s most vibrant communities, while providing them with a platform, resources and connections to help our sector move in a more progressive and inclusive direction that centers community voice, racial equity and social justice. They join a growing alumni base of more than 180 Boston Neighborhood Fellows since 1990.
The Fellows, who began working together in January 2021, each receive a two-year grant, along with leadership and other training. Fellows also will take part in core activities in some of the Boston Foundation’s discretionary impact areas, providing a valuable, proximate, decision-making voice that can inform and improve the effectiveness of the Boston Foundation’s grantmaking strategy. Members of the 2019-2021 Neighborhood Fellows class, for example, played a role in deciding grants from the Foundation’s
Open Door Grants program.
This year’s class represents a multitude of intersectional identities, experiences and perspectives that authentically and vividly represent the emerging diversity of Greater Boston.
“Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Queer and non-binary identities are strongly and proudly represented in this year’s class,” said Vetto Casado, who oversees the Fellows program as Assistant Director of Programs at the Boston Foundation. “We look forward to the group’s engaging and collaborative monthly meetings and insightful conversations with our senior management team and staff, as well as their ideas and perspectives on how this city and its resources become more available and accessible for all.”
The new class was nominated by past Boston Neighborhood Fellows and other Boston Foundation partners for the two-year program, which is designed to recognize and empower some of those making change happen across Greater Boston, but often without fanfare or acclaim.
