2022-23 Season: Philadelphia Rising
Our theme for this season's programs is Philadelphia Rising: From Surviving to Thriving.
Our hope is to strike a note of what you might call realistic optimism about city and region as it prepares to elect a new mayor and City Council next year and as it gets ready to welcome America and the world to the nation's 250th birthday party in 2026.
We'll seek to look honestly at the region's challenges and problems, but not in a gloomy or hopeless way. We'll highlight initiatives to celebrate and emulate. We'll catalog reasons for hope.
All programs are on Wednesdays, beginning at 5:30 p.m. with networking, open bar, and dinner, with the one-hour program beginning around 6:15. Programs are moderated by program director Chris Satullo, with an eye towards making the conversation informal, informative, and candid. Plenty of time is left for questions for the audience.
Venues will rotate among the Mann Center's outdoor Acclaim space, the Fitler Club, and the Union League. Program notices are sent out to members' email at least three weeks in advance and are repeated several times.
The fall programs are set:
October 12
We'll be back at the Mann's Acclaim space, where we opened the 2021-22 season so memorably.
We're working with the Philadelphia Citizen and a group called Keepers of the Common to feature their list of intriguing young leaders, which they call Generation Change.
We have seven people from the list lined up to give short talks on an idea, initiative, or trend in Philadelphia that they find exciting or important. We have invited the entire Generation Change list to the event.
Nov. 2
We'll be at the Fitler Club for this one. The topic is Fighting Poverty and Inequity: What Works. Claire Robertson-Kraft of ImpactEd, a club member, has been exploring that topic for the last few years, doing training in data collection, strategic planning, and program evaluation with dozens up dozens of nonprofits around Philadelphia and the East Coast, working with Pew and William Penn. She'll share a set of insights about what works and doesn't work that ImpactEd has gleaned from its experience. Then we've invited several nonprofit leaders who've worked with ImpactEd, including our Loree Jones of Philabundance, to take us deeper into the topics of seeking systemic change, deep collaboration, and community-centered strategy.
Dec. 7
In 2026, just four years from now, Philadelphia will host America's 250th birthday party. We'll hear from several people who are at the center of planning for that celebration: Danielle DiLeo Kim, head of Philadelphia 250; new member R. Scott Stephenson, CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution, and someone from the World Cup Committee that persuaded FIFA to make Philly a World Cup 2026 host city. We'll be at the Union League for this one.
Then, in the new year, we'll have programs on Philly's biotech strategy and the city elections, as well as our third story slam. One program topic remains to be determined. We'll rotate venues among Fitler, Union League and the Mann.
Members who've paid their dues can attend each event at no further charge. Each paid-up member has two free guest passes they can use for any program they choose. Any guests beyond that can be brought with prior notice and payment of a $100 guest fee.