Last night, Nicco and I attended the New Leaders Council's 40 Under 40 Leadership Award Ceremony here in Boston.

The New Leaders Council (NLC) is dedicated to fostering (in their words) a “new generation of progressive political entrepreneurs” -- young leaders willing to work outside traditional power structures, to think creatively and to act boldly in order to rebuild the institutions that make up our civic and political community.

The purpose of the 40 Under 40 Award was to spotlight a few of those young leaders. The award's importance derives from its scale -- the event was one in a series of similar events held all across the country -- in San Francisco, San Diego, Lexington, KY, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington, New York -- all dedicated to celebrating young progressive "political entrepreneurs" who are leading important progressive projects.

You can see a full list of the 40 winners from around the country here: http://www.newleaderscouncil.org/40under40/winners/2010

Of course, this mission is very close EchoDitto's heart. This year, in fact, the NLC New Media Award was renamed the "NLC EchoDitto New Media Award" in honor of EchoDitto's support for the organization and its work, and our shared belief in the power of technology to make the world a better place.

The NLC EchoDitto New Media Award was given this year to Joshua Levy, the online campaign manager for Free Press, a national media reform nonprofit. Josh is not only a leading voice on media reform issues, having worked at Free Press, techPresident, Personal Democracy Forum and Change.org -- he’s also a genuinely great guy. (I know because I had dinner with him.)

The other award winner at the Boston ceremony was Victoria Chapman, founder of Boxxout, an organization dedicated to improving educational and extracurricular opportunities for low-income children in urban settings.

All in all -- after many rounds of applause, introductions, and appetizers, and a few poems recited from memory by Nicco -- the night was a very good one.

As a young progressive -- one who would still qualify for an award for “Aspiring Progressive Leaders Who Can’t Legally Drink” -- the night was inspiring, heartwarming, even educational. To have so many people there who care so deeply about the work they do -- who really do believe in the dictum (brought up last night) that "those to whom much is given, much is required" -- helps a kid like me understand a bit more about my beliefs, and what I want to do with my time.

The purpose of the 40 Under 40 Award, the NLC and the night, one imagines, is more profound than the simple recognition of others: it's an opportunity to recognize ourselves. Our own capacities. Our own responsibilities. Our own membership in a movement larger than any one project or cause or evening.

The purpose of a network of progressives is to underscore the timely and yet utterly timeless fact that the next generation of progressive political entrepreneurs is always us. We are them.

And what could be a more important message than that? Indeed, what could be more progressive than that?

Progressivism, after all, is about more than just “getting politicians into office.” It’s that, of course -- but it’s more than that. Progressivism is a disposition, a way of thinking about our everyday relationship to the world. At it’s best, it’s the belief that ordinary people can come together to rethink, rebuild and improve the communities that we live and work in. Progressivism is defined most simply as the faith in our individual and collective abilities -- each of us, all of us -- to change the world for the better.

That faith was alive and well last night.