Awards, Nov 13, 2003

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

Arts. The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (Washington), the National Endowment for the Arts (Washington), the National Endowment for the Humanities (Washington), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Washington) have presented the 2003 Coming Up Taller Awards, which recognize outstanding community-arts groups that work with underserved youths. The awards for organizations in Mexico are sponsored by Cultural Contact-the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Culture (Mexico City). The recipients, which each received $10,000:

— Boston Photo Collaborative (Jamaica Plain, Mass.), which operates a summer-employment program for young people, a photography business run by teenagers that primarily serves nonprofit groups, and a program for youths living in housing developments that focuses on documentary photography.

— Butte Center for the Performing Arts (Mont.), for programs in which young people prepare and present musicals and historical melodramas.

— Center of Creative Arts (St. Louis), for the Pre-Professional Dance Program, which includes seminars about dance-related health issues and assistance applying to summer programs and postsecondary institutions.

— Community Music School (Raleigh, N.C.), which provides low-cost music instruction to disadvantaged youths and provides and repairs instruments at no charge.

— Community Television Network (Chicago), for Hard Cover, a cable-access television series produced by young people.

— Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey (Mo.), which offers a six-week arts camp for middle-school students free of charge.

— Literacy, Arts, Culture, Education, and Recreation (Lacer) Afterschool Programs (Hollywood), which links instruction in dance, music, theater, and the visual arts with English, mathematics, science, and other academic subjects.

— Marwen (Chicago), which offers a variety of arts-education classes and college- and career-planning services for students in middle and high school.

— Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum (Chicago), which runs a bilingual youth-operated radio station.

— Multicultural Youth Tour of What’s Now (Boston), which employs youth guides who research, write, and lead walking tours of Boston neighborhoods.

— Museum of Children’s Art (Oakland), through which professional artists teach classes in literary, media, performing, and public art in elementary and secondary schools.

— National Dance Institute (New York), which works with public schools to offer dance and visual-arts programs.

— Oaxaca Culture Institute, Rufino Tamayo Plastic Arts Workshop (Oaxaca, Mexico), which provides free lessons in painting and drawing for young artists.

— Please Touch Museum (Philadelphia), for a work-based learning program through which high-school students work with designers on museum exhibits, help acquire collection objects, and assist in the design of programs.

— St. Christopher-Ottilie, Center for Family Life (Brooklyn, N.Y.), for the Life Lines Community Arts Project, which combines education, the arts, and social services.

— Saint Joseph Ballet (Santa Ana, Calif.), for providing dance classes, tutoring, crisis intervention, and assistance with college admission and financial aid.

— Shakespeare Festival/LA (Los Angeles), for Will Power to Youth, through which teenagers adapt and present plays based on Shakespeare’s texts.

— Tamaulipas Institute for Culture and the Arts (Ciudad Victoria, Mexico), which has created 14 children’s choirs, through which children and their families also receive health-care and other social services.

Children and families. Grantmakers for Children, Youth & Families (Washington) has named Luba Lynch as the recipient of its 2003 Fred Rogers Leadership Award in Philanthropy for Children. Ms. Lynch, executive director of the A.L. Mailman Family Foundation (White Plains, N.Y.), helped to organize several coalitions of foundations that promote the well-being of children, including Grantmakers for Children, Youth & Families and the National Funding Collaborative for Violence Prevention (Washington).

Community development. The National Community Capital Association (Philadelphia) has presented its 2003 Congressional Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Champion Award to Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. Senator Specter led efforts in Congress to increase financing for the CDFI Fund, which provides small grants to community-development organizations and financial institutions in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The association, in conjunction with the Wachovia Corporation (Charlotte, N.C.) also presented four CDFI Excellence Awards, to honor financial institutions that invest in individuals, small businesses, low-cost housing, and other community services benefiting disadvantaged neighborhoods. The awards, which are each accompanied by a $1,000 prize, were made in the following categories:

— Advocacy: Maryland CDFI Coalition, which has raised awareness of community-development financial institutions throughout the state.

— Community impact: New Jersey Community Loan Fund (Trenton, N.J.), which has provided training and assistance to child-care and education organizations.

— Financial performance: Housing Development Fund of Lower Fairfield County (Stamford, Conn.), which has generated annual operating surpluses while supporting low-cost housing.

— Innovation: Accion (New York), which sends loan officers to conduct workshops, accept applications, and service loans in community centers and borrowers’ workplaces.

Entrepreneurship. The Echoing Green Foundation (New York) has named its 2003 fellows, who were selected for their outstanding social entrepreneurship. Individual fellows receive $60,000 and partners receive $90,000 to help new nonprofit organizations tackle social problems. The recipients and their organizations:

— Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro, Palestinian Strategic Nonviolence Initiative (Ramallah, West Bank), which will train students and activists to use nonviolent political strategies to promote economic improvements and reduce regional violence.

— Joshua Brown, Salish Language Perpetuation Project (St. Ignatius, Mont.), which will work to preserve the language and cultural traditions of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Nation.

— Ashley Burczak, Students Active for Ending Rape (New York), which will help students at colleges and universities raise awareness about sexual assault on their campuses.

— Mia Butzbaugh and Michael Dale, Northwest Workers’ Justice Project (Portland, Ore.), which will help low-wage, contingent, and undocumented workers in Oregon gain access to legal services.

— Gary Kosman, America Learns (Los Angeles), an Internet-based program designed to make administrative tasks easier for tutors and tutoring-program managers.

— Clementine Mukeshimana Msengi, Bright Move (Cedar Falls, Iowa), which will provide education, mentoring, and social-service referrals to immigrants and refugees.

— Daniel Ravicher, Public Patent Foundation (New York), which will challenge illegitimate patents that prevent patients from receiving vital medications and hinder small businesses.

— Fred Schlomka, Mosaic Communities (Kfar Saba, Israel), which will lease and purchase land for new housing developments that are open to Arab and Jewish Israelis.

— Marcus Douglas Scott, the Fré Foundation (Arlington, Va.), which will promote cross-generational teaching approaches to enhance lessons about democracy.

— Tara Veazey, Eastern Montana Self-Help Law Project (Helena), which will organize lawyers and volunteers to help poor people prepare to represent themselves in civil cases.

Fund raising. The Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (Naperville, Ill.) and the Prospect Information Network (Daytona Beach, Fla.) have presented the Researcher of the Year Award for 2003 to Katy Filner, assistant director of development and research at Stanford U. (Palo Alto, Calif.). The award recognizes the skills and accomplishments of fund-raising researchers early in their careers.

Nonprofit leadership. The California Wellness Foundation (Woodland Hills) has selected six executives of nonprofit health organizations to participate in its sabbatical program. The program provides each organization with a $30,000 grant to cover its leader’s salary and expenses during a sabbatical of at least three months. The recipients:

— Ann Britt of Valley Community Clinic (North Hollywood).

— Boona Cheema of Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (Berkeley, Calif.).

— Dave Jones of Mountain Valleys Health Centers (Bieber, Calif.).

— Stephen Schilling of Clinica Sierra Vista (Bakersfield, Calif.).

— Diane Takvorian of Environmental Health Coalition (San Diego).

— Karen Wandrei of Mendocino Family and Youth Services (Ukiah, Calif.).

Nonprofit research. Independent Sector (Washington) has awarded its 2003 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize to Benjamin Gidron of Ben Gurion U. (Be’er Sheva, Israel), Stanley Katz of Princeton U. (N.J.), and Yeheskel Hasenfeld of the U. of California at Los Angeles, for their book Mobilizing for Peace: Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and South Africa. The second-place prize went to Lawrence Friedman of Indiana U. (Indianapolis) and Mark McGarvie of the U. of Richmond (Va.), for Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility in American History.

Social marketing. The Foundation of Women Executives in Public Relations (New York) has presented its 2003 Crystal Obelisk Awards for Social Responsibility to honor companies and nonprofit groups that have used public-relations campaigns to promote good works. The recipients:

— Global Peace Initiative of Women (New York) and Ruder Finn (New York), for gathering support from corporations, nonprofit groups, and United Nations agencies to promote economic and social projects for women.

— Governors Island Group (New York) and Ruder Finn, for successfully encouraging city and state officials to preserve Governors Island, in New York.

— Harrah’s Entertainment (Las Vegas), for working with the Meals On Wheels Association of America (Washington) to raise awareness of the growing need for meals delivered to homebound elderly people.

— Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago) and Hunter Public Relations (New York), for working with NeighborWorks (Washington) to publicize the efforts of 10 communities to increase the number of minorities who own homes.

The foundation also presented its Denny Griswold Award to Together RX, a collaboration of pharmaceutical companies led by AstraZeneca (Wilmington, Del.), and Edelman (New York). The pharmaceutical companies helped elderly people enroll in a program that provides medications at discounted prices.