Awards, May 03, 2007

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

Community service. The Marin Community Foundation (Novato, Calif.) has presented its 2007 Beryl H. Buck Awards for Achievement to Ana Maria Ramirez, who will receive $10,000, and the Marin Interfaith Council (San Rafael, Calif.), which will receive $25,000.

Ms. Ramirez was honored for her efforts to help Latino residents in Marin County, Calif., to be more involved in local child-care programs, Head Start programs, literacy projects, political activities, and schools. She emigrated from Mexico in 1968 and has since worked to create partnerships between immigrant and nonimmigrant neighborhoods.

The Marin Interfaith Council was recognized for its social-justice efforts, including vigils it sponsored for residents of San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood during raids by federal immigration officers.

The awards are given annually to an individual and a group whose activities directly benefit residents of Marin County.

Education. The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced the winner of the 2007 Academic Leadership Award, which recognizes leaders of institutions of higher education who have shown a commitment to the liberal arts and instituted innovative curricular programs, as well as supported school improvements from kindergarten through 12th grade, teacher education, and community outreach. Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of the City University of New York, received the $500,000 prize, to be used for his academic priorities.

Environment. The Goldman Environmental Foundation (San Francisco) has presented its 2007 Goldman Environmental Prize to grass-roots environmental activists from six world regions. The winners, who each received an unrestricted stipend of $125,000:

— Africa. Hammerskjoeld Simwinga (Zambia), who created a sustainable community-development program that helped restore wild elephants to this region where illegal poaching had decimated the elephant population and left the people in extreme poverty.

— Asia. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar (Mongolia), who worked with government and grass-roots organizations to eliminate unregulated mining operations along Mongolia’s waterways.

— Europe. Willie Corduff (Ireland), who mobilized a group of local residents and landowners to halt construction on an illegally approved Shell Oil pipeline that would have cut through their land.

— Islands and Island Nations. Orri Vigfússon (Iceland), who helped end the commercial fishing of endangered wild North Atlantic salmon through international fishing-rights buyouts involving governments and corporations.

— North America. Sophia Rabliauskas (Canada), who succeeded in protecting a portion of the boreal forest in Manitoba from logging and hydropower development, and who is advocating permanent governmental protections for the region.

— South and Central America. Julio Cusurichi Palacios (Peru), who secured a national reserve in the Peruvian Amazon to protect rainforest ecosystems and the rights of indigenous people who live there from the effects of logging and mining.

Grant making. The Council on Foundations (Washington) has awarded its 2007 Distinguished Grantmaker Awards to Diane Kaplan, president and chief executive officer of the Rasmuson Foundation (Anchorage), and a collaboration of seven foundations that helped establish Action Greensboro (N.C.).

Ms. Kaplan joined the Rasmuson Foundation in 1995 as an administrator and was appointed to lead the grant maker in 2001. She serves on the boards of the Council on Foundations, Philanthropy Northwest, and several regional and state nonprofit groups in Alaska, including the Alaska Children’s Trust and the United Way of Anchorage.

Action Greensboro, a six-year-old program that aims to bring more and better-paying jobs to North Carolina, is sponsored by the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, the Cemala Foundation, the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, the Moses Cone/Wesley Long Community Health Foundation, the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, the Toleo Foundation, and the Weaver Foundation. Those grant makers collaborate with the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Greensboro Economic Development Partnership to enhance their efforts to improve the quality of life of Greensboro residents.