Awards, Dec 12, 2002

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

American Indians. Ecotrust (Portland, Ore.) has presented its 2002 Buffett Award for Indigenous Leadership to Kelly Brown, former senior negotiator for the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, in British Columbia. The award recognizes a Native American leader working in conservation or community development. Mr. Brown works as a negotiator, planner, and educator in the areas of cultural restoration and conservation; he will use the $25,000 award to continue his work on aboriginal title issues.

Arts. North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents (New York) has presented its inaugural Award for Excellence in Presenting the Performing Arts to Tom Weidemann, executive director of the Clemens Center (Elmira, N.Y.). Mr. Weidemann has raised nearly $8-million for renovations and has established an endowment for the center. The award includes a $1,000 contribution to this endowment.

Corporate giving. Mass High Tech (Boston) and Hale and Dorr (Boston) have presented their 2002 TechCitizenship Awards, which honor New England technology companies for their philanthropic activities. The Telluride Group (Newton, Mass.) received top honors for its contributions in monetary and in-kind donations and volunteer work, including its companywide volunteer day for Special Olympics. PTC (Needham, Mass.) was ranked second for its support of public schools and higher education, and Molecular Inc. (Watertown, Mass.) was ranked third for its contributions to Boston Cares and the Ballet Theater of Boston.

Gay men and lesbians. The Rainbow Card (Conshohocken, Pa.), a Visa credit card co-founded by the tennis champion Martina Navratilova that donates a portion of sales to gay and lesbian causes, has presented its 2002 Subaru Rainbow Leadership Award to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (Dallas). The award, which includes a $10,000 contribution, recognizes the foundation’s outreach efforts to improve breast-cancer services and education for lesbians.

Grass-roots leaders. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation (Winston-Salem, N.C.) has presented its 2002 Nancy Susan Reynolds Awards, which recognize grass-roots leaders from North Carolina who have worked largely without recognition. The winners: for advocacy, Diane Bauknight, owner of a State Farm agency in Arden, who has urged the legislature to increase spending to support children with mental illness and their parents; for race relations, Cader Harris, who helped found the Hope Group, which promotes racial understanding and harmony in Elizabeth City; and for personal service, Margaret Noel, founder and director of the Memory Assessment Clinic and Eldercare Resource Center, in Asheville, which provides a holistic approach to the care of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Each award carries a $25,000 cash prize, of which $5,000 goes to the individual and $20,000 to a charitable organization designated by the winner.

Humanities. The Grawemeyer Foundation, based at the University of Louisville (Ky.), has presented its 2003 Grawemeyer Awards “to honor powerful ideas” in five fields. Each award carries a $200,000 honorarium. The recipients:

-Education. Deborah Brandt, an English professor at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison, for her book entitled, Literacy in American Lives, which advocates literacy as a civil right.

-Ideas improving world order. Stuart Kaufman, an associate professor of political science at the U. of Kentucky (Lexington), for his book, Modern Hatreds: the Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War.

-Music composition. Kaija Saariaho, of Finland, for her opera, L’amour de Loin (Love From Afar).

-Psychology. Daniel Kahneman, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton U. (N.J.), for his research on human decision making and judgment. His former colleague and research partner, Amos Tversky, also received the award posthumously.

-Religion. Mark Juergensmeyer, director of the global- and international-studies program at the U. of California at Santa Barbara, for his book, Terror in the Mind of God: the Global Rise of Religious Violence. This award is presented jointly by the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Volunteers. The McKnight Foundation (Minneapolis) has named the recipients of the 2002 Virginia McKnight Binger Awards in Human Service, which honor Minnesota residents who volunteer their time to enhance the quality of life of others. The winners, each of whom received $7,500, are: Andrew Benjamin (St. Paul), Martha Cardenas (Worthington), Bonham Cross (Minnetonka), Mohamed Essa (Eden Prairie), Ann Hooley (Stillwater), Jacqueline Kavanagh (Edina), Ed and Fern Ostberg (Minneapolis), Ron Schwartz (St. Paul), Margaret Smith (Ponsford), and Gayle Weigle (Minneapolis).