Joe Deitch
Dorchester native
A Dorchester native and Boston Latin School graduate who went on to build a highly-successful financial services company is bringing a new philanthropic endeavor – Elevate Cities – to his hometown, with a focus on building community by funding events like block parties.
Joe Deitch helped to launch the non-profit last year in Miami, where he currently lives.
“I’ve been very fortunate in business and this effort excites me to no end,” the 76-year-old entrepreneur told The Reporter this week. “I just realized we’re essentially going to be paying to take everyone in the community to go to dinner with their neighbors for one night. Think about what ripples or the butterfly effect that will have when so many neighbors meet each other.”
Elevate Cities’ first Boston initiative will fund Halloween block parties— dubbed Spooky Grants— in Boston this month, pledging $25,000 to replace city funds that were cut from the budget this year. They also plan additional rounds to help program events like book fairs, poetry slams, and songwriting contests.
“We are a relatively young organization, starting last year and piloting in Miami in late 2025,” said Kim Coupounas, the CEO of Elevate Cities. “We were able to quickly spark joy and civic pride around the whole city. We’re now taking what we learned in Miami and bringing it to Boston.”
Mayor Michelle Wu said 50 organizations will be able to apply for $500 for their events. “Boston’s block party program supports residents hosting their own gatherings to bring people together and create lasting memories and bonds,” she said in a statement. “This year, with support from Elevate Cities, we are making it easier for even more residents to host block parties and turn our streets into joyful community spaces.”
Deitch has family on Dorchester’s Erie and Greenwood streets. He spent most of his childhood on Stratton Street near Franklin Field development and then lived near the former Dorchester High School.
He attended the Greenwood School, the former William Bradford School on Willowwood Street, the Shaw Elementary School, and was admitted to Boston Latin School in 7th grade.
Since 2012, his name has been is attached to BLS’s Deitch Leadership Institute.
“I remember sitting on the wall on Talbot Avenue during the Jewish holidays very vividly,” he said. “Mostly my memories are of knowing all the kids in the neighborhood. When I grew up on Stratton Street, it was such a diverse neighborhood of all races, and I actually never encountered any racial or religious discrimination until I was older.
“It was such a fun place. It was kids on bikes, and you went outside all the time and didn’t come home until dinner.”
Deitch later attended the University of Pennsylvania, and then Harvard Business School. In 1979, he founded Commonwealth Financial Network as one of the early brokerages serving retail clients. He remains chairman of the company but stepped back as CEO in 2009, and the company is still one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Additionally, he is a best-selling author of ‘Elevate: An Essential Guide to Life’ and a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer who helped stage a 2012 revival called “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.”
Coming back home to Boston — where he now lives part time— is “deeply personal” for him, he said.
“It’s so shocking to me I didn’t know or appreciate Boston as a whole until I came back as an adult,” he said. “I had no clue what an amazing city Boston is…I was so lucky to grow up in Boston and I didn’t know it.”
“We started in Miami because most of us are here and have connections here, but naturally Boston was the next community for us,” he said.
He hopes Elevate Cities can knit the Boston community more tightly together.
“If we can help connect with what’s right in front of them – not only with history and culture but with each other, that’s our goal,” he added. “I read every day about this social epidemic of loneliness and not belonging, which is the antithesis of how I grew up.”
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