Awards Honor Grant Makers’ Efforts to Apprise the Public of Their Work

The Council on Foundations this week will present 98 awards to honor grant

makers for creating materials to educate the public about their work.

The 18th annual Wilmer Shields Rich Awards for Excellence in Communications, named after the council’s first executive director, will be given at the organization’s annual meeting, in Philadelphia.

Each year the awards recognize outstanding annual reports and Internet sites. Awards in other categories are given in alternate years. This year, awards were also given for special reports and newsletters.

Judges evaluated entries based on the overall results of the communications effort, the effectiveness of its message and design, the organization of the content, and distribution strategies.

The winners included:

• The Minneapolis Foundation’s publicity campaign called “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way” was designed to encourage people to think about what will happen to their children, their material possessions, and other assets after they die. The campaign, which the foundation hoped would lead more people to think about charitable bequests, was aimed largely at the city’s black population. The foundation said a survey of blacks had found that only one in five had wills. In addition to newspaper advertisements, the foundation developed television and radio announcements and offered free will-preparation sessions on two Saturdays.
• Casey Family Programs, a grant maker in Seattle, won a special-recognition award for a publication and exhibit called “Unfinished Stories.” The stories, told with black-and-white photographs and text, are those of young adults who grew up in foster families. The publication was intended to call attention to the problems of young people who receive government-subsidized care until they are 18, but are then expected to support themselves independently.
• The Marie C. and Joseph C. Wilson Foundation, in Rochester, N.Y., wove throughout its annual report pictures showing pieces of a patchwork quilt made to celebrate the fund’s 30th year of operation. Each of the foundation grant recipients contributed a square to the quilt, which was intended to show how the nonprofit organizations work together to cover the social-service needs of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
• The Joyce Foundation, in Chicago, decorated a Chicago Transit bus to become a “moving billboard” to promote the use of nonpolluting fuels. Chicago’s buses were the first in the nation to test nonpolluting hydrogen fuel cells, and the foundation wanted to encourage the city’s residents to press for continued use of the hydrogen-powered buses. The foundation painted the bus with a mock warning label that would remind people of ones used on cigarette packages, but this one had a more uplifting message. It said: “Breathe easy: This fuel cell bus needs no gas and emits only water.”