Margot Welch, Ed.D., lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the author of Promising Futures: the Unexpected Rewards of Engaged Philanthropy.  Margot founded the Collaborative for Integrated School Services at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she also taught courses about school-based services and full service/community schools. In addition to serving on the Steering Committee of the Boston Full Service Schools Roundtable, she writes, volunteers in various community organizations, and is developing a new project focussed on youth empowerment and community building.  She has worked as a psychologist and educator in school, community, and court settings for more than three decades.

Margot has written for years, though often anonymously. For ten years she contributed to and edited the Collaborative’s quarterly newsletters (Field Notes).  She also wrote and edited major conference reports for organizations to which she has been committed. Through these vehicles, and through poetry and creative non-fiction, she has come to see herself writing as a scribe who enjoys giving voice to people whose stories might otherwise be untold.  Newest projects focus on family narratives and resilient youth. She has always been particularly interested in “thrivers,” people who succeed in doing the kind of public service work that seems impossible to many – relentless helpers who, like the philanthropists in her book, Promising Futures, are  determined to equalize opportunity and well-being for us all.