When the three cofounders of the Civic Action Project launched the nonprofit in 2019, their main goal was to help build a stage for the next generation of Boston leaders — and, if we’re being honest, embark on a fun challenge amid their respective retirements.
Seven years have passed since CAP’s founding, and it’s time for CAP 2.0. That’s the name founders and longtime buddies Ira Jackson, Steve Crosby, and George Bachrach are giving to the next iteration of their brainchild, an iteration that will involve much less of them.
Kicking off 2.0 is the nonprofit’s first CEO. On Friday, CAP announced it has hired Dan Noyes, former chief executive of Tech Goes Home, to run the $1 million-a-year project and grow it to a much bigger scale. Executive director Rebecca Gordan will stay on board to help.
“We started CAP in part to pass on whatever wisdom and experience we had to the next generation,” said Ira Jackson, a former banker and college administrator. “We’re just trying to walk the walk.”
CAP has evolved into essentially three programs: a “Collaborative” boot camp for prominent government leaders and business executives, the CAP “Fellows” to train graduate school interns in public policy, and an effort to improve opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses in publicly managed real estate competitions.
Of the three amigos, friends since the 1970s, only Crosby still sits on the CAP board, though all three remain involved. The CEO search was led by board member Yolanda Coentro, chief executive of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice.
Noyes stepped down from Tech Goes Home, a nonprofit that helped get laptops and other devices into the hands of underserved schoolkids, early last year. (The nonprofit has since shuttered due to funding cuts, though it has two successor programs in Tennessee and Michigan.) He had been starting his own consulting business when a friend told him about the CAP opportunity.
“The more I researched the organization, the more I realized how special it was,” Noyes said. “I feel like it’s a best kept secret. That’s something I want to change.”
Noyes said he plans to expand its revenue beyond individuals’ donations and the fees paid by CAP Collaborative participants, in part by soliciting corporate and foundation sponsors. He also wants to tap into CAP’s powerful network of alums, to better help the state and its public policy debates.
“My job is to help it matter more,” Noyes said. “The organization has been so organic for the last six or seven years, it has served [the founders’] purposes incredibly well. It’s time for a real look at how we make this organization sustainable for the long haul.”
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.