2026 Summit
The 2026 Paul W. Spooner Generational Leadership Summit will take place from November 16-18 at the Marriott Boston Quincy. Stay tuned for more information!
About the 2025 Summit
The 3rd Annual Paul W. Spooner Generational Leadership Summit took place from September 29th to October 1st, 2025 in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
This year saw a record number of applicants, nearly doubling the number of applications received in 2024. Out of all applicants, 20 were invited to the Summit, and 18 completed programming.
Like the 2024 Summit, new emerging leaders and alumni volunteers were split into groups designated as “Impact Teams.” These teams worked collaboratively on an advocacy plan focusing on different areas of importance to people with disabilities. The 2025 Impact Team topics were Defending Medicaid, the Personal Care Workforce, and Affordable and Accessible Housing. All teams are encouraged to continue to work on their plans following the Summit.
A priority goal of the 2025 Summit as well as events to come is the inclusion of alumni. This year, we invited our alumni to lead sessions, ensuring the Summit truly belongs to them and allows them to build on the work done together. Nearly all sessions featured alumni volunteers as presenters. From start to finish, the sessions they presented were in their own words and focused on the issues they felt mattered most in the modern disability rights movement.
2025 Programming Examples
Movement Ecology (presented to alumni) –
This session explored the theories of change that make up movement ecology; the idea that successful social movements need many roles and approaches working together, from grassroots organizing to policy advocacy. Alumni weighed the pros and cons of each theory of change and identify which one(s) apply to their own role in the disability rights movement.
Power Analysis –
In this session, participants learned how to identify key stakeholders in an issue or campaign.
Participants were introduced to power mapping, a clear, practical tool that shows:
- Who has decision-making power
- Who influences decision-makers, and
- Who your allies and opponents are.
Participants learned the quadrant method, practiced it with real disability focused examples, and left ready to use it in their own campaigns.
What is a Campaign? –
How do we get social change to happen? How do we go from a problem to a solution? In this session, participants learned what a campaign is, how to pick issues to focus on, how to determine strategy, and what a successful campaign looks like. Real-world examples of campaigns to make Massachusetts more accessible were shared and analyzed.