Awards, Apr 05, 2007

The following awards have been presented for work in advocacy, fund raising, nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and other areas:

Education fund raising. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (Washington) has presented its 2007 Independent Schools Awards to individuals and foundations that have supported elementary and secondary education. The awards and their recipients:

— The John R. Chandler Award for corporations or foundations: American Honda Motor Company (Torrance, Calif.).

— The Robert Bell Crow Memorial Award for fund-raising professionals: Don Hill, assistant head of school for external affairs at Mercersburg Academy (Pa.).

— The Seymour Preston Award for trustees: Lewis S. Somers III, overseer of the William Penn Charter School (Philadelphia).

— The Support Staff Distinguished Service Award: Jasmine Karasoulas, office manager for the development office at the Chapin School (New York).

Fund raising. The Association of Fundraising Professionals (Alexandria, Va.) has announced the following recipients of its 2007 Awards for Philanthropy:

— Award for Outstanding Corporation: Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America (Erlanger, Ky.).

— Award for Outstanding Foundation: Sobrato Family Foundation (Milpitas, Calif.).

— Community Counselling Service Award for Outstanding Fund-Raising Professional: Paul Marcus, founding president and chief executive officer of the York U. Foundation (Toronto).

— Ketchum Award for Outstanding Volunteer Fund Raiser: Joan and Howard Katz of Forth Worth.

— Paschal Murray Award for Outstanding Philanthropist: Bernie Marcus, retired co-founder of Home Depot (Atlanta).

— William R. Simms Award for Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy, Ages 5-17: students of Wheaton Academy (West Chicago), who raised more than $78,000 to build a school for children in a village in Zambia that had been devastated by AIDS.

— William R. Simms Award for Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy, Ages 18-23: Sarah Rose Varadian of Norwood, Mass., who established Wee Care Bears, a charity that sells handmade stuffed animals to benefit two schools for girls in Afghanistan.

Grant making. The Council on Foundations (Washington) has awarded its 2007 Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking to John Damonti, president of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation (New York), for his work on the foundation’s Secure the Future Initiative. The program supports health centers in Africa for children and families with HIV/AIDS, and trains local health-care professionals in treating the disease.

The council’s 2007 Paul Ylvisaker Award for Public Policy Engagement went to the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation (Boston) for its Roadmap to Coverage Initiative. The program is designed to support research on and options for expanding health-care coverage for uninsured people in Massachusetts. The Urban Institute (Washington) conducts the research and policy analysis for the project.

Additionally, the council has announced the recipients of its Critical Impact Awards for innovative projects supported by grant makers. The winning organizations and projects:

— The BP Foundation (Warrenville, Ill.) for its project to strengthen mathematics education at the precollege level.

— The Corporation for Enterprise Development (Washington) and its grantors for its American Dream Demonstration, which helps low-income working families save money and build assets.

— The Humana Foundation (Louisville, Ky.) for its Romanian Assistance Project, which has worked to reform the nation’s health system since 1990.

— The Schott Foundation for Public Education (Cambridge, Mass.) for efforts to improve the school-finance system in New York.

— The Seva Foundation (Berkeley, Calif.) for its eye-care programs, which helps poor people with cataract blindness in Africa, Asia, and India.

International development. The King Baudouin Foundation (Brussels) has given its 2006-7 International Development Prize to Front Line, the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (Dublin). The prize carries a cash award of 150,000 euros (approximately $200,000).

Political thought. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (Milwaukee) has presented its 2007 Bradley Prizes to honor outstanding achievement consistent with the foundation’s mission, which includes “strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles, and values that sustain and nurture it.” The recipients, who each received a $250,000 cash prize:

— John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (New York) and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Policy Research (Washington).

— Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard U. and president of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Mass.).

— Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (New York). Stephan Thernstrom is also a professor of history at Harvard U. (Cambridge, Mass.) and his wife, Abigail, is vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Washington).

— James Q. Wilson, a professor of public policy at Pepperdine U. (Malibu, Calif.).

Religion. The John Templeton Foundation (West Conshohocken, Pa.) has presented its 2007 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities to Charles Taylor, a professor of law and philosophy at Northwestern U. (Evanston, Ill.). The award, which includes a cash prize of £800,000 (nearly $1.6-million), honors work that advances understanding of spirituality. Mr. Taylor is a philosopher who posits that social ills such as bigotry and violence can be solved only by considering their secular and spiritual impact. He has written more than a dozen books, and the third volume of his lecture series entitled “A Secular Age” is expected to be published by Harvard University Press later this year.