We aim to elevate you, so you can elevate others.

How you do anything is how you do everything…

“That’s it” I thought, removing my hat with a picture of a little boy haphazardly taped on the inside of the brim. “If I am not going to finish this race, then this little boy is”. I extended my arm to a runner by my side. “What’s this”? he asked. “I need you to make sure this little boy crosses the finish line, can you do that”? I managed to mutter, barely placing one cramping leg in front of another cramping leg. The runner could tell I was throwing in the towel, and only a few hundred steps away from the finish line. “I can’t do that, I’m sorry”, he said, “but you can”. That was 2014, 1-year after the Boston Marathon bombing and was the very moment I came to appreciate that this race was not my race. Instead, this race was the little boy’s race. The same little boy who was known for spreading peace and kindness amongst his 8-year old classmates and for making sure even the little guy or girl had a chance at the plate during recess. “If he could step up for others, so could I”, I thought to myself, as I crossed the finish line waving my hat in the air.

Exhausted with the low grade conversations they were having over the course of their fleeting weekends, our founders were inspired post covid lockdowns to create a more elevated and purposeful dialogue with friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, investors and philanthropists. Their goal initially: Bring together conscious, wildly brilliant and exceedingly successful individuals to learn something outside of their everyday lives, move beyond surface level conversations and engage in sharing their time, talent and treasure.

“It needed to be a calling, and we really needed to feel it. The hair on our skin had to go up and only then did we give a full body yes. Only then were we 110% committed”, says the Rising Board founders, Elisabetta and Kevin Entwistle.

Life is too short to be mediocre, and anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Our founders felt that if their board room was not over the top, then they wouldn’t stand a chance of making the board a high functioning and desirable community. For this reason, they created an environment for leaders to come together, grow together, and most importantly change the way they see the world together. Showing up is simply not enough, the Rising Board calls on each member to give a resounding and full body yes.

“Many of our members find themselves on one or multiple non-profit junior boards, or even corporate boards as investors and mentors. But what we offer is something entirely different. Our giving approach is flexible in that our mission spans beyond just one foundation or cause and we are also focused not just on giving, but also receiving”. In fact, each dinner guest has an opportunity to address a pain point in their life, calling on the experience and backgrounds of fellow guests and utilizing the diversity of opinion and perspective. The connectivity begins in the board room, but it carries into the world afterwards.

Elisabetta played D1 tennis and Kevin founded and played for the Men’s D2 club hockey program at Providence College where they both met. Throughout their lives, they have come to appreciate the lessons in leadership, commitment and teamwork derived from playing sports and decided to empower the Rising Board membership to also take a leadership position in focusing their giving section of the night towards helping to grow the next generation of younger leaders in underserved schools.

For that reason, The Rising Board became a community foundation in 2022 in the form of a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) and giving circle. A giving circle entails a group of members raising funds together, and ultimately deciding as a group according to foundation bylaws to allocate funds to areas of most need and impact. Leaders understand that giving away their power is what makes them powerful. And in the spirit of the giving circle, our leaders have a chance to do the following: 1.) Sharpen their group communication skills, 2.) Grow their charitable experience, and 3.) Become more thoughtful about their own impact as a leader. The giving circle focuses on areas like providing the opportunity for athletics, academics and entrepreneurial experience for young and underserved communities and leaves it up to the leaders at dinner to decide on where to focus their impact.