Tim O’Shea, founder of Engage Colorado, remembers the first time he met people like him – other social entrepreneurs who have chosen to dedicate their time and efforts towards building their community. It was on the “Building Startup Communities” panel for Portland, Maine, he said, and there he met Emerging Prairie co-founder Greg Tehven, and Iowa Startup Accelerator co-founder Andy Stoll.

“I recall the moment when I looked upon the faces at the table – seeing Greg, Andy and the other talented people sharing their stories – and I realized ‘Holy cow! I’m not alone!'” he said.

He’s not alone, but he still stands out. O’Shea and those doing similar community-building work are constantly breaking the status quo; they’re the people who keep asking questions, who pursue how to make things better. They’re the people who can’t really describe what they ‘do’ – especially to a culture that monetarily values success. They might even be described, as PBS once wrote, as The New Heroes.

The first weekend of January 2015 saw 19 of these community leaders from around the world gathered in Las Vegas for the debut of an event called Social Tilt, organized by Emerging Prairie and UnLtd USA. The purpose of the event was to identify individuals who are transforming their communities, and bring them together to learn from and encourage one another. To reestablish, as O’Shea learned that day in Portland, that they are not alone.

“Most of the people who were there are stepping up to build their community in some form or fashion,” said Zoe Schlag, founder of UnLtd USA and co-organizer of the event. “But it was very diverse in scope on what people are working on.”

O’Shea, Tehven and Stoll were all there, joined by other movers and shakers from a variety of cities. There was Marc Winn, hailing from the small English island of Guernsey, which he claims will be the best place to live by 2020 and is taking action to make that happen; Nate Olson, from Kansas City, MI, who co-founded the ever-growing event 1 Million Cups in the hopes of uniting startup communities everywhere. Schlag herself founded UnLtd USA in Austin, TX, which singles out promising entrepreneurs and gives them the support to turn their ideas into realities.

These people are doing big things. And those names are just a slice of the pie. Others flew in from across the country, everywhere from San Francisco, CA, to Chattanooga, TN. The group met up in Vegas and then traveled to a cabin in Utah, for a weekend retreat of exchanging ideas and discussing what it looks like to be a “community-builder.”

Schlag said she and Tehven had started kicking around the idea for the event at the end of last year. They recognized the value in getting like-minded social entrepreneurs under one roof.

“We wanted to gather them together to share learnings and understand what the journey of building a community looked like across the US,” Schlag said.

According to O’Shea, the end result was a very successful event.

“At Social Tilt I found my fellowship,” he said. “I formed fantastic, lasting friendships over the course of the weekend, before I learned last names or what anyone ‘did’ for work.”

Looking back on the event, Schlag said her biggest takeaway is that collaboration is key to progress. This is why these events are so valuable, she said. They allow for collaboration between community builders that are separated by hundreds of miles – but all chasing the same dream.

“I think we all left wanting to recruit the 18 other people to our city,” Schlag said with a laugh.

As for O’Shea, he sees the event as merely the beginning.

“Events like Social Tilt are the start of the next phase of startup communities,” he said. “Creating sustainable and supportive ecosystems for entrepreneurs everywhere.”

Photo courtesy of Eric Kim.