Awards, Mar 17, 2005

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

Corporate philanthropy. The Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy (New York) has presented its Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Awards, which honor companies for their executives’ commitment to philanthropy, innovation in corporate giving, and dedication to evaluating the effectiveness of their philanthropy. The award for companies with annual revenue in excess of $3-billion was shared by GE (Fairfield, Conn.) and Novartis (Basel, Switzerland). GE was recognized for its domestic College Bound and Math Excellence programs, its international education and employment-skills programs, and its efforts to improve community health in selected areas of Africa. Novartis was recognized for its efforts to combat leprosy, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases in developing countries through research, product donations, and technical assistance.

The award for companies with annual revenue of less than $3-billion went to Arch Chemicals (Norwalk, Conn.), which supports science-education projects in the United States and efforts to provide safe drinking water in underdeveloped communities around the world.

In addition, Jumpstart (Boston) received the Directors Award, which is accompanied by a $25,000 prize, for its partnerships with American Eagle Outfitters, Pearson, and the Starbucks Coffee Company to develop the language, literacy, and social skills of disadvantaged preschoolers.

Health. Grantmakers In Health (Washington) has presented its 2005 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy to Frank Karel. Mr. Karel, retired vice president of communications at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Princeton, N.J.), was honored for his work to demonstrate the strategic value of communications in health-related grant making.

International development. The King Baudouin Foundation (Brussels) has given its 2004-5 International Development Prize to Ousmane Sy, founderof the Centre d’Expertises Politiques et Institutionnelles en Afrique (Bamako, Mali). Mr. Sy was honored for his decades of work to promote good governance and administrative decentralization in Mali and elsewhere in West Africa. The International Development Prize carries a cash award of 150,000 euros (approximately $200,000).

Religion. The John Templeton Foundation (West Conshohocken, Pa.) has presented its 2005 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities to Charles Townes. The award, which includes a £795,000 (approximately $1,530,000) cash prize, recognizes work that advances the understanding of God or spirituality. Mr. Townes, a professor in the graduate school at the U. of California at Berkeley, is a Nobel laureate whose inventions include the laser and the maser. Through his research, writings, and lectures, Mr. Townes has sought to find and examine commonalities between science and religion.

Research. The Dan David Foundation (Tel Aviv) has announced the recipients of its 2005 Dan David Prizes, which recognize individuals for innovative and interdisciplinary research on the past, present, and future of the arts, humanities, science, and technology. Each year the foundation chooses a field within each of the three time periods; this year’s choices are archaeology (past), the performing arts (present), and materials science (future). Each prize carries a $1-million cash award, of which $100,000 goes to support scholarships for young researchers in the winner’s field. The recipients:

— Past. Graeme Barker, a professor of archaeology and director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the U. of Cambridge (England), whose work focuses on the beginnings of farming and pastoralism and on archaeological perspectives on landscape degradation and sustainability; and Israel Finkelstein, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv U., a leading scholar on the archaeology of the Levant region who applies this knowledge to reconstructing biblical Israelite history.

— Present. Peter Brook, director of the International Center for Theatre Creations (Paris), for his pioneering role in reshaping the style and approach of theater productions in the second half of the 20th century.

— Future. Robert Langer, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge), for his work in the field of biomaterials and tissue engineering; C.N.R. Rao, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (Bangalore, India), for his decades of work in solid-state and materials chemistry; and George Whitesides, a professor in the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard U. (Cambridge, Mass.), for his many contributions to the field of materials science, including exploring the intersection of molecular-scale synthesis and surface science.

Social change. Ashoka: Innovators for the Public (Arlington, Va.) and its Changemakers-Citizen Base Initiative have announced the five recipients of its inaugural Changemakers.net Innovation Awards. The winners were chosen by visitors to the Changemakers.net Web site as “presenting the most innovative, compelling, and globally replicable ideas for generating money and other resources needed to sustain an organization from a citizen base of support.” The winning organizations and projects:

— Center of Developing Professional Activities, Fundacja Szansa/Chance Foundation (Warsaw), for its Mazury Station project.

— Garden of Hope Foundation (Taipei, Taiwan), for its Anti-Child Prostitution Campaign.

— Goonj (New Delhi), for its School to School project.

— Men on the Side of the Road (Cape Town), for its Second Hand Tools Project.

— Unlad Kabayan Migrant Services Foundation (Quezon City, the Philippines), for its Empowering Migrants and Harnessing Remittances for Development project.

Spirituality. The John Templeton Foundation (West Conshohocken, Pa.) has presented its Epiphany Prizes for Inspiring Movies and TV, which carry a prize of $50,000 each. The award for the “most inspirational” film of 2004 went to The Passion of the Christ, directed by Mel Gibson, and the award for the “most inspirational” television program went to the “Happy Trails” episode of Doc, a series on the PAX TV network.

Sports philanthropy. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Princeton, N.J.) and the Sports Philanthropy Project (Boston) have presented the inaugural Steve Patterson Sports Philanthropy Award to the Eagles Youth Partnership, the charitable foundation of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. The award, which honors a sports team or athlete foundation, went to the Eagles Youth Partnership for its Eagles Eye Mobile Program, which provides free vision exams and prescription glasses to thousands of disadvantaged children in Philadelphia.

Youth. The National Child Labor Committee (New York) has announced the recipients of its 2005 Lewis Hine Awards, which recognize outstanding service in behalf of children and youths. The Distinguished Service Award went to James Ketelsen, former chairman and chief executive of Tenneco, for his work to establish Project Grad USA (Houston), a scholarship program that serves students and teachers in 232 of the nation’s most disadvantaged schools. The Ronald H. Brown Award went to Dennis M. Walcott, deputy mayor of New York City, for his longtime work to help at-risk New York children and youths overcome prejudice and discrimination.