Awards, Nov 02, 2000

The following awards have been presented for leadership in managing nonprofit organizations, volunteerism, and scholarship in the field of philanthropy:

Environment.

The Trust for Public Land (San Francisco) has presented its Ferguson Award for outstanding volunteer leadership to Chris Sawyer, a partner at the law firm of Alston & Bird (Atlanta). Mr. Sawyer serves as national chairman of the Trust for Public Land’s Board of Directors, founded its Georgia Advisory Board, and serves as chair of the Chattahoochee Coordinating Committee, which seeks to conserve land along the Chattahoochee River, which provides drinking water to half of Georgia’s residents.

Humanitarianism. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation (Reno) has presented its 2000 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to Casa Alianza, a group that helps homeless children in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The organization, a subsidiary of Covenant House, in New York, provides shelter, food, medical care, protection, and educational opportunities to street children. It was founded in 1981. Each year the Hilton prize provides $1,000,000 to a nonprofit organization that has contributed significantly to easing human suffering.

Nonprofit leadership. The Durfee Foundation (Los Angeles) has named six recipients of its 2000 Durfee Sabbatical Awards, which provide outstanding leaders of Los Angeles County nonprofit organizations with up to $25,000 each to travel, write, or otherwise renew themselves. This year’s recipients are:

— Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy.

— Roy Hong, executive director of Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates.

— James Preis, executive director of Mental Health Advocacy Services.

— Solomon Rivera, associate director of the Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention.

— Dorothy Thompson, executive director of the Streetlights Production Assistant Program.

— The Rev. Eugene Williams III, executive director of Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches.

Nonprofit management. The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management (New York) has presented its 2000 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation to the SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) Project (San Francisco) for its Peer Educator Training Program. Through the program, former prostitutes learn the skills they need to empower other women and girls to escape prostitution and build independent lives free of violence and abuse. The SAGE Project will receive a $25,000 prize and a promotional video will be professionally produced to help the group strengthen its education and public-relations efforts. Two additional programs were recognized for their innovative management: Knowbility (Austin, Tex.), for its Accessibility Internet Rallies, one-day events that bring together high-technology professionals and others to brainstorm ways to make the Internet more accessible to people with disabilities; and KaBoom! (Washington), for its Playground Institutes, two-day gatherings at which community leaders construct playgrounds for children and learn about ways to harness community resources.

Nonprofit research. Independent Sector (Washington) has awarded its 2000 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize to Richard A. Couto, a professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the U. of Richmond (Va.), for his book Making Democracy Work Better. Honorable mention was given to Burton A. Weisbrod, a professor of economics at Northwestern U. (Evanston, Ill.), and Cagla Okten, a doctoral student in economics at Northwestern, for a paper they wrote together entitled “Determinants of Donations in Private Nonprofit Markets.”