Awards, Aug 22, 2002

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

Community development. The Fannie Mae Foundation (Washington) has announced the recipients of its 2002 James A. Johnson Community Fellows Awards, which provide affordable-housing and community-development professionals with grants to pursue personal and professional development. The fellows are: Jan Breidenbach, executive director of Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing (Los Angeles); James Capraro, executive director of Greater Southwest Development Corporation (Chicago); R. Charles Gatson, vice president of Community Builders of Kansas City (Mo.); Robert L. Jackson, chief executive officer of Quitman County Development Organization (Marks, Mass.); Ronald Phillips, president of Coastal Enterprises (Wiscasset, Me.); and William Sullivan, executive director of Rocky Mountain Mutual Housing (Denver). Each fellow receives a $90,000 grant, which includes a $20,000 travel and study stipend.

Conservation and the environment. The Bay Foundation (New York) and the Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation (New York) have announced the latest recipients of their Biodiversity Leadership Awards, which provide $180,000 each over three years to outstanding individuals working to preserve biological diversity. The winners:

— Jane Elder, executive director of the Biodiversity Project, in Madison, Wis., who applies innovative strategies to convey the results of conservation-science research to many constituencies.

— Judy Logback, who formed the Callari Cooperative with indigenous families of Ecuador’s Upper Napo River region. The cooperative works to develop traditional crafts and products for trade, while reducing the need to clear rainforest timber.

— Lily O. Rodriguez and Debra K. Moscovits, who led a drive to convince Peruvian officials to create the 5,225-square-mile Cordillera Azul National Park. The two enlisted their colleagues at the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, to expedite the scientific surveys and assessment supporting their campaign.

— Anne Yoder, a biologist at Yale U., in New Haven, Conn., who studies the evolutionary diversity of lemurs in Madagascar and brings students and others from Madagascar to Yale for training in modern conservation-biology practices.

— Ya-ping Zhang, vice director of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, in Kunming, China, who studies the evolutionary history and genomics of both wild and domestic animals in China. His work, which is widely published, is helping to relate a species’ genomics to its vulnerability to decline or extinction.

Creativity. The Creativity Collaboration has presented its inaugural Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award to the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The award recognizes “the world’s most extraordinarily creative thinkers and innovators” in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The Creativity Collaboration is a joint program of the Smithsonian Associates (Washington) and the Benjamin Franklin DaCapo Creativity Foundation (Chevy Chase, Md.). Next year’s award will focus on creativity in public service.

Direct marketing. The Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation (Washington) has named Easter Seals (Chicago) as its 2002 Nonprofit Organization of the Year. Easter Seals was recognized for its successful application of direct-response marketing to its donor acquisition and cultivation programs.