City Council President Andrea Campbell is organizing an event for later this month that is expected to attract hundreds of civic leaders from the city’s neighborhoods for informed discussions about their efforts in making things happen in their local precincts.

The Boston Civic Leaders Summit on Sat., Nov. 23 will be staged at both the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the US Senate and the JFK Library and Museum in Dorchester.

Among the topics on the agenda will be the value of cultivating connections with city officials and of new efforts to extend the reach and impact of resident-led changemaking.

“Outside of having incredible speakers, we’ll have substantive workshops that address best practices for civic associations, how you navigate government, racial equity, how you care for yourself as a volunteer leader,” Councillor Campbell told the Reporter this week.

US Rep. Ayanna Pressley will be the keynote speaker. Others scheduled to speak are Campbell, Antionette Carroll, founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, Eric Gordon, a professor and director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College, and Karen Groce Horan, co-founder of Courageous Conversations toward Racial Justice.

“We are still developing the programming but it will be rich in substance around critical issues facing the City,” said Campbell.
In early 2018, Campbell launched the District 4 Civic Empowerment Series, a bi-monthly convening of civic leaders in Dorchester, Mattapan, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain with the aim of equipping leaders with the skills they can use to best effect in their communities. The upcoming summit is an expansion of that initiative across district lines.

“The reason we decided to come outside of District 4 is people had asked and either talked to some of the civic leaders that were participating in our Empowerment Series,” said Campbell. “We also had folks who participated in the summit which was previously led by [former] Council President Feeney. People saw the value in bringing that back.”