When Alan and I started the Trefler Foundation in 1996, we were new to philanthropy, and I was fairly new to Boston. I had left a 15-year career in investment banking to become a teacher, and Alan's company, Pegasystems, had just gone public. We were poised at an exciting moment in our lives. While I loved teaching (and I still do), I knew that our Foundation could offer a way to have a significant impact on urban schools, to help more young people, and to help make changes in Boston that would have lasting results.

I was fortunate to find a group of people who shared my dreams and who were willing to help me in so many ways. Boston's Mayor Tom Menino, UMass Boston's Chancellor Sherry Penney and Education Dean Richard Clark gave the Foundation the leadership capital it needed to work deeply in the schools. At Dorchester High School, our flagship school, I was privileged to have the guidance of an extraordinary group of teachers and administrators: Paul Casilli, John Palmeri, and Steve Barr, all from the Academy of Public Service, where I had done my student teaching; Bobbie Belle, the new headmaster at Dorchester, who was willing to take a risk when no-one before him in the Boston Public Schools had ever worked so closely with a local foundation, and a host of others who worked together to make change possible. The Graduate College of Education at UMass Boston offered us important support, through the work of highly engaged faculty such as Lee Teitel and June Kumeskis, who became shared resources both to the University and to Dorchester. The Boston Private Industry Council helped us achieve our goal of bringing more adults into the lives of young people through its mentoring program.

From this base, we built multi-layered partnership, using the Foundation's resources, staff energy, and sometimes, sheer persistence to connect community groups such as Teen Empowerment and Boston Partners in Education to the work at Dorchester. While we made many other grants during this period, our work at Dorchester High School continues to be the most profound for me, both as an educator and a foundation Trustee.

We have spent some time reflecting on the Foundation's first decade and have gathered ideas for our next steps. Alan and I are excited about the future and about our continued commitment to use our philanthropy for positive change in our community. Our foundation has been a learning laboratory for us, and we look forward to new opportunities to discover and support leaders, programs and organizations that make a difference.

Pam Trefler