Awards, Oct 27, 2005

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

AIDS. The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS (New York) has announced the recipients of its 2005 GBC Awards for Business Excellence, which recognize companies that have made innovative contributions to fighting HIV/AIDS. The winners: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (New York), De Beers (Southdale, South Africa), Getty Images (Seattle), M·A·C Cosmetics (New York), Virgin Unite (London), and Volkswagen of South Africa (Uitenhage).

Civil rights. The Human Rights Campaign (Washington) has presented its National Civil Rights Award to Julian Bond, chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP (Baltimore), in honor of his four decades of work to promote social change and civil rights for all Americans.

Human services. The Caring Institute (Washington) has announced the young-adult recipients of its 2005 National Caring Awards, which honor people age 18 and younger who have worked to improve the lives of others. The winners:

— Kyle Amber, 16, of Pinecrest, Fla., who founded the Kids That Care Pediatric and Cancer Fund, a group affiliated with Jackson Memorial Hospital that provides young cancer patients with toys and services.

— Mary Lan Dong, 17, of Cambridge, Mass., who created Operation West Africa, which operates three programs in Guinea: an orphanage for girls, a vocational school, and a high school.

— Jacob Komar, 13, of Burlington, Conn., who established Computers for Communities, a group that has provided more than 300 used computers to needy families.

— Aishlinn O’Connor, 16, of Prairie Village, Kan., who persuaded administrators at a local geriatric center to convert the facility’s backyard into an intergenerational playground and garden.

— Greg Sweeney, 17, of Wilmington, Del., who founded a Cub Scout group that serves homeless boys and provides them with backpacks, books, school supplies, and tutoring.

Internet. The ePhilanthropy Foundation, a Washington organization that promotes the ethical use of the Internet in fund raising, has announced the winners of its inaugural International ePhilanthropy Awards, which were presented in four categories. Following are the winners, which each received $500 to donate to a charity of their choice:

— Best Community-Building/Volunteerism and/or Activism Campaign: The March of Dimes (White Plains, N.Y.) for its “Share Your Story” Web site (http://www.shareyourstory.org), which combines blogs and message boards that allow the families of premature and other high-risk babies to share their experiences and learn how to best meet their children’s needs.

— Best Online Donations/Fund-Raising Campaign: GreaterGood South Africa Trust (Constantia), which used its site (http://www.GreaterGoodSA.co.za) to help raise more than $128-million for 46 charities and five schools during the past year.

— Best ePhilanthropy Research Project: Luth Research (San Diego), whose site (http://www.kintera.org/Kintera-LuthReport2005) presented research on online philanthropy, including benchmark findings regarding online donations, that stemmed from two surveys during 2005.

— Best Event Registration and/or Membership Campaign: Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization (Austin, Ill.), whose site (http://race.y-me.org/carrie) incorporates information, registration, donation, and other components for the “Y-ME Race Against Breast Cancer” and “Walk to Empower” fund-raising events.

Nonprofit research. Independent Sector (Washington) has awarded its 2005 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize to Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart for their book Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Honorable mention went to Richard Chait, Bill Ryan, and Barbara Taylor for Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, and to Steven Dubb and Gar Alperovitz for Building Wealth: The New Asset-Based Approach to Solving Social and Economic Problems.

Violence prevention. The California Wellness Foundation (Woodland Hills) has awarded its 2005 California Peace Prize to three violence-prevention leaders and advocates. The recipients, who each received a $25,000 cash prize:

— Otilio Quintero, assistant director of Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos (Calif.), who works to prevent youth violence through educational and leadership-development programs, including the Cesar E. Chavez School for Social Change, and who helped secure passage of legislation that directed more than $10-million to community-based groups fighting violence and gang activity.

— Maria Velasquez, a violence-prevention trainer and outreach worker in Shingletown, Calif., for Second Step, a classroom-based social-skills program that addresses the connection between bullying behavior in childhood and battering behavior in adulthood.

— Sayre Weaver, legal director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (Washington), who has worked in California over the past decade to reduce gun violence through legislation and litigation, including establishing the right of gun-violence victims to sue members of the gun industry who engage in negligent marketing and distribution practices.