Matthew Stephens aims to open up Mount Auburn Cemetery

Now, Mount Auburn is trying to attract more visitors to stop by for free, by opening four new pedestrian gates in the wrought iron fence that lines Mount Auburn Street as well as a fifth new entrance, at a long-closed existing gate on Coolidge Avenue. The ribbon cutting for these new gates takes place on Thursday. Stephens hopes to open two more gates next year, on the Grove Street side of the cemetery.

“We really envision this as a symbolic gesture that the organization is open and welcoming,” Stephens said. “It’s really the first part of a transformative vision to really galvanize Mount Auburn as a community resource. . . . There are significantly more public events at Mount Auburn, at a completely different scale.”

Stephens’s interest in horticulture dates back to when he was 10 and mowing the lawn for his grandfather. After getting a master’s degree in public horticulture at the University of Delaware, Stephens worked for the city of New York, where he helped spearhead a campaign to plant one million trees. From there, he went on to be garden director for what is now known as the Gardens of Golden Gate Park.

Stephens had never been to Mount Auburn when he began considering the job. He felt it was a bit like a blind date: He was worried he would show up and not feel an emotional connection. No need to worry. It was love at first sight: the rolling hills, the variety of mature trees, memorable monuments like the 62-foot-tall Washington Tower.

“When you’re here,” Stephens said, “there’s no other place on earth that looks or feels like Mount Auburn.”

More than 1,000 supporters of Quincy-based Team Impact packed the nonprofit’s gala on April 20 at the Encore Boston Harbor casino, raising more than $3.5 million. It’s an annual event, but there was something different this time: After helping build Team Impact into a national charity in the past eight years, Seth Rosenzweig passed the baton to new chief executive Joe Daniels. It will be up to Daniels now to continue to boost the nonprofit’s profile beyond its Boston roots — a big goal of cofounders Jay Calnan and Dan Kraft.

Team Impact’s main mission: placing children with disabilities or debilitating illnesses with collegiate sports teams, much like how Jay Calnan’s brother Chris Calnan became a batboy for what was then a Red Sox AA affiliate in their hometown of Bristol, Conn. Sports gave Chris a boost in self esteem and sense of belonging. Although Chris Calnan died in a car accident at age 21, for Jay Calnan, his spirit lives on through Team Impact’s successes.

In 2011, Jay Calnan called up Kraft, a fellow Tufts alum and now a top executive with the Kraft Group, and asked him for help in launching what would become Team Impact, along with other Tufts alumni and friends. On Mother’s Day of that year, a nine-year old cancer patient named Ben was “drafted” by Saint Anselm College’s hockey team. He would be the first of nearly 4,000 kids to be placed with university teams across the country through Team Impact over the years. About 1,600 kids are actively matched today, Calnan said.

Calnan’s construction company, J. Calnan & Associates, has built a variety of projects across New England over the years. But Calnan seems most proud of what he and his friends have done with building Team Impact, including its lasting impact on college athletes.

“It’s really dialed me into what’s important in life, . . . the concept of mutually beneficial relationships,” Calnan said. “If you give and you make the effort, and you put yourself out there, you’ll be rewarded. . . . This works so well, why wouldn’t every collegiate athletic team have a kid?”

In its 14 years, Boston nonprofit investment adviser Social Finance has helped direct nearly $400 million in public and private funds toward workforce training efforts and other social initiatives in which the dollars are often tied to measurable results. It’s not enough for chief executive Tracy Palandjian. She essentially wants to show how others can do it, through researching and promoting best practices in this growing field of “outcomes-based funding.”

To pull it off, Palandjian’s national organization launched the Social Finance Institute earlier this month, at an event at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge that drew about 250 civic leaders. The institute, which will be run as part of Social Finance, will be based in Washington, D.C., staffed by a handful of people, and led by Karen Anderson, formerly with the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics.

Does the world need another institute? Palandjian and her board asked that question, before deciding that the collaboration and partnerships that this effort could bring would be an effective way to broaden Social Finance’s impact. The $400 million, she said, “is a drop in the ocean. How do we mainstream these approaches? . . . We feel after 14 years of doing work on the ground, it’s time to go from improving tens of thousands of lives to millions of lives.”

In March, at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce event, House Speaker Ron Mariano tried to pour cold water on a state ballot question that would end the use of MCAS tests as a high school graduation requirement in Massachusetts. Last week, it was Senate President Karen Spilka’s turn.

Spilka expressed her opposition in a Q&A session with chamber chief Jim Rooney. (The question’s proponents, led by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, argue too much classroom time is devoted to preparing for the test.)

Spilka told Rooney, who is also opposed to the ballot question, that she gave the issue a lot of thought.

“Accountability is important to me,” Spilka said. “I cannot support totally getting rid of MCAS as a requirement [for graduation] without some reasonable alternative. We need to make sure our kids are learning.”

Spilka also responded to a question from Rooney about an economic development bill that Governor Maura Healey filed last month, legislation that would set aside $1 billion over 10 years for the life sciences industry and a similar amount for climate-tech. Spilka said she appreciates those industries but would like to see more money devoted to fostering the cybersecurity and robotics sectors as well.

Spilka used her visit with the chamber to champion “Raise the Age” legislation that would increase the age for when teenage suspects in most kinds of crimes get treated as adults in the justice system. It’s a big priority for the Boston Celtics, and four of the team’s top executives — Steve Pagliuca, Dave Hoffman, Allison Feaster, and James Parker — were in the audience. The legislation, Spilka argued, would help achieve racial equality and give kids who run afoul of the law a fair shot at success.

“By the way, thank you for not taking that poll of who did stupid things in high school,” Rooney deadpanned. “I think I would have been on the ‘10′ end of that scale.”

Spilka’s lighthearted response: “I probably would have had to raise my hand, too.”

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.