Michael Busack steps into the spotlight as new head of Club Passim

Boston Globe

2 days ago

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With the Trustees, music was a part of the bigger job. Now, as executive director of Passim, one of the country's most prominent folk music venues, it's his entire job. He oversees a $1.5 million annual budget with 10 full- and part-time administrative staffers, as well as a roster of around 40 part-time servers, teachers, and event workers — with shows and classes happening almost every day of the year.
Among his challenges will be figuring out how to expand Passim's presence beyond the walls of the cozy basement club and its offices and classrooms on a floor above the club, in a
Harvard University
-owned building at the corner of Church and Palmer streets.
'There's no room to grow in this current space,' Busack said. 'We're programmed to the max.'
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Passim's leaders are in active conversations to help present shows at bigger, different venues across Greater Boston. The goals: to broaden the number of people who can come to the shows, expand the programming beyond the traditional folk music the club is known for, and reach different audiences.
'We have to think a little bigger and bolder about how we continue to operate in the future,' Busack said.
Most staffers sing or play an instrument of some sort, and usually show off their talents at a quarterly show put on by Passim employees and board members. Busack said he hopes to pick up an instrument at some point so he can join in.
'The team here is encouraging me to take lessons,' Busack said. 'This will give me the right amount of pressure to figure something out. I don't want to not contribute as the new guy.'
New role for Meet Boston exec
Hilina Ajakaiye is taking a new job as chief strategy officer at the National Coalition of Black Meeting Professionals.
HANDOUT
Meet Boston
's
Hilina Ajakaiye
is stepping into a new national role, but she's not stepping away from Boston.
This week, Ajakaiye takes a new job as chief strategy officer at the
Staying in Boston allows her to maintain
her roles at local nonprofits, including as board
chair of the
Rose F. Kennedy Greenway Conservancy
and a board member of the
Black Economic Council of Massachusetts
.
Ajakaiye joined Meet Boston, the region's tourism bureau, in 2020 as its executive vice president. As the world reopened from the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped chief executive
Martha Sheridan
reposition Meet Boston to better support the industry's recovery.
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Ajakaiye — a first-generation Ethiopian immigrant — strengthened Meet Boston's connection to communities of color and helped spearhead the
'There's a huge opportunity,' Ajakaiye said. 'A lot of folks don't know how to galvanize the community and how to make people feel welcome, so that'll be my focus.'
Nonprofit law firms team up
Pioneer Law president Frank Bailey.
Photo courtesy of Pioneer
For the past few years, Boston has essentially had two free-market-oriented, nonprofit law firms, the
Pioneer Public Interest Law Center
and the
New England Legal Foundation
. Now, there will be only one, as the Pioneer law center acquires some of NELF's assets, including the brand name.
The Pioneer law center will be rebranded as the
Pioneer New England Legal Foundation
, or PNELF, and led by
Frank Bailey
, a former federal judge who became Pioneer's first president in 2022. (The Pioneer law center is a separate nonprofit from the
Pioneer Institute
led by
Jim Stergios
, though they share back-office services, among other connections.)
Bailey said NELF's board decided to wind down its operations, so it reached out to Bailey and Pioneer chair
Brackett Denniston
to propose what Bailey calls a 'strategic alliance.' Several NELF board members are joining the Pioneer law center's board, as is NELF president
Natalie Logan
; NELF attorney
Ben Robbins
is now on Pioneer's four-person legal staff. And Pioneer will also take over the John G. L. Cabot Award Dinner, an annual NELF fund-raiser that will return in 2026.
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Both groups get involved in legal cases related to economic fairness and free enterprise, Bailey said, though Pioneer also works on cases that advance educational opportunity or government transparency. Unlike NELF, which focused on appellate cases, Pioneer will also initiate complaints, and follow them through to trial, if necessary.
Pioneer also has welcomed members of the various NELF advisory councils in New England, who help surface legal causes worth championing.
'We're going to be more effective,' Bailey said. 'We have been involved in matters outside of Massachusetts already [but] the best way to do that is to have people on the ground in those other states. That's what the advisory councils bring us.'
'First big milestone' for Holocaust museum
At the ceremonial groundbreaking for the Holocaust Museum Boston, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, center, spoke with Jody Kipnis (left), and Todd Ruderman (right), cofounders of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation and Holocaust Museum Boston.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
Jody Kipnis
has been working on the concept of
Here were Boston Mayor
Michelle Wu
, city Councilor
Ed Flynn
, and State House power brokers — including Senate President
Karen Spilka
, House Speaker
Ron Mariano
, and House Ways and Means chair
Aaron Michlewitz
— gathered to salute this once-crazy dream Kipnis and
Todd Ruderman
had, a dream that's getting much closer to reality.
'I don't think it hit until today, the gravity of what we're doing,' Kipnis said afterward. 'This was the first big milestone for us, publicly.'
When general contractor
Lee Kennedy Co.
completes the project in late 2026, the Holocaust Museum Boston will stretch across six floors of a 33,000-square-foot building at 125 Tremont St., facing Boston Common. Kipnis, a former dental hygienist, now leads the
Holocaust Legacy Foundation
, a nonprofit she formed in 2018 with Ruderman to keep the stories and lessons from the Holocaust alive for new generations.
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Their foundation bought a three-story building on that site for $11.5 million in 2022, using money that Ruderman and Kipnis contributed. Their initial plans called for retrofitting the structure, but then they decided to build something new, and twice the size, to fulfill their ambitious vision. They say they have raised around two-thirds of the $100 million construction cost; a supplemental budget under consideration at the State House could provide up to $10 million in state funds.
It all started with a trip they took in 2018 to Auschwitz with Holocaust survivor and friend
David Schaecter
, who told them: You've seen Auschwitz, so now what are you going to do? The foundation they created was initially intended to fund fellowships for teens to learn about the Holocaust. The COVID-19 pandemic paused that plan. Kipnis and Ruderman came up with a more ambitious one.
The museum will feature a donated Nazi-era rail car, personal artifacts from the Holocaust, as well as an interactive holographic exhibit featuring interviews with Schaecter.
'This is not a Jewish museum, this is a museum for everyone,' said Ruderman, owner of the
Value Store It
chain. 'We're using the Jewish people as an example of what happens when democracy breaks down.'
Jon Chesto can be reached at