Awards, Feb 24, 2000

The following awards have been presented for work in philanthropy, fund raising, volunteerism, and non-profit management:

Architecture. The National Building Museum has awarded its first Apgar Award for Excellence for achievement in the observation, interpretation, and evaluation of American buildings that heightens public awareness of excellence in building and urban design, development, community revitalization, and city and regional planning. The award, which includes a $1,500 prize, was given to Samuel Mockbee, co-founder and director of the Rural Studio (Greensboro, Ala.). The Rural Studio is a program of Auburn University for advanced landscape-architecture students, who spend a term designing and building homes for poor residents of Hale County, Ala.

Community service. Richard Egger, director of D.C. Central Kitchen (Washington) has received this year’s Bender Prize, awarded by the philanthropist Morton Bender to people who have done extraordinary work at small Washington non-profit organizations. Mr. Egger’s group collects unused food from local restaurants and hotels and then uses it in a job-training program that teaches food-service skills and makes 3,000 meals a day for hungry people. The award consists of $25,000 for Mr. Egger’s personal use and $250,000 for the organization.

Higher education. The Council of Independent Colleges announced its annual Awards for Philanthropy and Award for Personal Philanthropy for significant support to the council or its member institutions. The Awards for Philanthropy went to the Kresge Foundation (Troy, Mich.), which channels 80 percent of its giving into challenge grants for building projects, and the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust (Vancouver, Wash.), which focuses on strengthening educational and cultural organizations in the Pacific Northwest. Julie J. Kidd, president of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation (New York), received the Award for Personal Philanthropy for her efforts to encourage her foundation to support private colleges, including sponsorship of the “Planning for Leadership” program for new college presidents, run by the Council for Advancement of Private Higher Education, an operating unit of the Council of Independent Colleges.

Leadership. The Heinz Family Foundation (Pittsburgh) has announced the recipients of its 1999 Heinz Awards, which recognize outstanding leaders in five areas. Each recipient receives an unrestricted $250,000 prize.

— The Arts and Humanities: Peter Mathiessen, an author of both fiction and nonfiction books and founder of the Paris Review, a literary publication.

— The Environment: Paul Gorman, founder and executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (New York), a group that places environmental issues in a moral, multidenominational context and distributes educational materials to congregations nationwide.

— The Human Condition: Robert Moses, a civil-rights activist and high-school teacher in Jackson, Miss., who left graduate studies at Harvard University in 1982 to found the Algebra Project, after deciding that his eldest daughter wasn’t receiving an adequate mathematical education. The project helps almost 40,000 middle-school students from poor families in 13 states learn mathematical skills through everyday problem solving.

— Public Policy: Edward Zigler, a psychology professor at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.), who helped the federal government create the Head Start health and educational program for preschool children from low-income families. His evaluation research demonstrating the program’s effectiveness also helped save it from government cutbacks, and he continues to point out problems and suggest solutions to improve it.

— Technology, the Economy, and Employment: Mary L. Good, former Undersecretary for Technology in the Department of Commerce in President Clinton’s first term and the managing member of Venture Capital Investors (Little Rock, Ark.), which seeks to develop technology-based companies and jobs in Arkansas. She also lectures on the importance of science education.