In old guard power circles, LEADERSHIP Philadelphia has long served as a tie that binds.

The half-century old nonprofit maintains as its primary function an annual core class made up of monthly meetings for mid-level business, policy and civic leaders. It has an impressive alumni network and looks something like a finishing school for professionals.

Several years ago the group, headed by Liz Dow, launched a series of industry-specific groups, including a list of Creative Connectors, aimed at fostering cross-generational ties and to supplement its core class. The group has taken that a step further with a new annual class of emerging leaders dubbed Connectors and Keepers, which first debuted in 2014.

That first class included familiar faces to nonprofit circles, like Tiffany Tavarez of PECO‘s charitable giving arm, education policy analyst Ami Patel Hopkins, Felicia Harris of the Urban Affairs Coalition, Omar Woodward of the Greenlight Fund, social impact consultant Rudy Flesher and buzzy social entrepreneurs Yasmine Mustafa and Morgan Berman. (Of course we’re biased because, full disclosure, both Generocity columnist Lansie Sylvia and our Editorial Director Chris Wink were included too).

Like the long-running core class, this group is convened monthly and put through a kind of civic curriculum that extends beyond the Leadership model that is common across the country. The goal of the program, as evidenced in its name, is meant to better connect these emerging leaders to mentorship and other civic assets in an effort to further bind them to Philadelphia, as Dow has said.

Now that this Connectors and Keepers group is halfway through its monthly sessions, we were taken by how many self-identified mission leaders are included. In fact, it’s harder to say who wouldn’t fit that category of the 50-odd invite-only participants.

Consider some of those in this current class, which again, full disclosure, is close to our hearts as it includes our former teammate and nonprofit advocate Mo Manklang and Technical.ly Philly Associate Editor Juliana Reyes:

• Arielle Brousse, director of development for Kelly Writers House and of the Spruce Foundation
• Owen Camuso, program manager at Resources for Human Development
• Saleem Chapman, policy and advocacy manager Sustainable Business Network
• Pat Christmas, policy program manager at Committee of Seventy
• Alison Garber, director of strategic philanthropy and volunteers, Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
• Leigh Goldenberg, executive director of Theatre Philadelphia
• Georgia Guthrie, executive director of The Hacktory
• Justine Haemmerli, founder of Pedalogical
• Rob Lawless, founder of @Robs10kFriends
• Katie Monroe, ‎ombudsman volunteer coordinator at CARIE
• Anton Moore, founder of Unity in the Community
• Michael O’Bryan, youth programs manager at The Village of Arts and Humanities
• Jessica Paschke, corporate and volunteer relations manager at Broad Street Ministry
• Amanda Morales Pratt, director of development at the Bread & Roses Community Fund
• Max Tuttleman, trustee of The Tuttleman Foundation
• Anne Wakabayashi, executive director of Emerge Pennsylvania
• Corinne Warnshuis, executive director of Girl Develop It
• Danielle Wolfe, executive director of the M. Night Shyamalan Foundation