Dispatches from the Next Tech Gold Rush

Getting the PayPal Set to Open Their Checkbooks
How the new tech barons might reshape Boston philanthropy.

Bill McAvoy works with corporate donors at the Museum of Fine Arts. The sources he used to rely on for gifts have been drying up, and the reason’s not surprising: Financial companies have been moving out of the region. So McAvoy’s tapping a new breed of patron. In June, he convened a group of prospective donors from the tech world for a tour designed to strike their fancy, taking his guests through the conservation lab and digital-imaging studios, and showing off the electron microscopes that analyze artworks.

A popular refrain says tech geeks belong to a so-called techno-libertarian class—a maligned group of self-interested achievers with no use for civic engagement. But that’s an endangered stereotype. And the change amounts to more than just writing some checks: Experts say the take-charge attitude that propels tech entrepreneurs in business makes them leaders when they get into community causes. “We see a real drive for results in a lot of the younger donors who have made their money in technology,” says Phil Buchanan, head of Boston’s Center for Effective Philanthropy.

One executive who’s applied his experience to not-for-profit pursuits is General Catalyst’s John Simon. The venture capitalist founded the GreenLight Fund, which mines the country for great civic organizations and then adapts their ideas to attack Boston issues. “There is this great community of supporters in the venture and entrepreneurial community who are saying, ‘We love creating things and making things happen,’” he says.

Edward Glaeser, director of Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, thinks the emphasis on getting involved shows that the tech community has grown up. “There was a gap where older industry types were disappearing, and people who were leading these new industries were not old enough to be playing this role,” says Glaeser. “In the long run, the median tech CEO will be just as engaged as the old types, and probably with a lot more money.” As that happens, he says, techies will direct the philanthropic priorities of the city toward the goals they value. Meaning more resources for things like education—and, if Bill McAvoy is lucky, fine art.