Good Ideas aren’t enough.
The Burnham Center for Community Advancement (BCCA) is San Diego’s first “think-and-do tank.” Established in 2021 with the mission to help make the San Diego binational region a better place to live, work and play for all, BCCA is unique in its focus to ensure innovative ideas become realized actions.
Founder and long-time civic leader Malin Burnham started the new organization based on his personal motto of “Community Before Self.” He envisions BCCA serving as a nexus point where community stakeholders and multi-sector partners come together to identify regional needs, find innovative solutions, and tackle some of our most pressing issues.
La Jolla resident and nonprofit leader Tad Seth Parzen was tapped to be President and CEO and the organization has already hit the ground running. BCCA has been a key partner with Design Forward Alliance and UC San Diego’s Design Lab and succeeded in winning the bid for San Diego-Tijuana to be the World Design Capital 2024. The bid to the World Design Organization highlighted the culture of cross-border collaboration and the role of innovative human-centered design toward building more interconnected communities. San Diego-Tijuana are two countries and two cities, but one region and community that are continuously redefining and redesigning our cross-border home.
True to its community-centered orientation, BCCA seeks to bring people and ideas together in a neutral platform for the betterment of the region. In addition to Burnham’s vision and Tad’s leadership, the center will be led by community advisory groups and a board of directors of diverse civic leaders, including Paula Cordeiro, Peter Ellsworth, Lisette Islas, Jack McGrory and Vincent Mudd. The Center will rely on civic organizations and residents to find solutions to housing affordability, advancing an equitable workforce system, and revitalizing Balboa Park, to name a few.