Awards, Sep 04, 2008

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

Aging. The American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (Washington) has presented its 2008 Award of Honor to Laverne R. Joseph, president and chief executive of the Retirement Housing Foundation (Long Beach, Calif.). Mr. Joseph has led the organization for the past 21 years and also currently serves as chair of the National Affordable Housing Trust (Columbus, Ohio).

Education. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Seattle) has presented its 2008 Access to Learning Award to the Vasconcelos Program in Mexico’s Veracruz state. The $1-million award honors the group’s work to bring computer and Internet technology to rural, indigenous communities, using a fleet of 24 all-terrain vehicles equipped with computers, satellite Internet connections, and teams of experienced trainers.

Leadership. Independent Sector (Washington) has presented the 2008 American Express Building Leadership Award to the Center for Community Change (Washington) for its work to provide grass-roots groups that serve low-income and minority communities with the training and resources they need to take action on such public-policy issues as education, health care, and housing. The award, formerly known as the Leadership IS Award, is accompanied by a $10,000 grant. It recognizes a nonprofit group that advances leadership among its board and staff members, volunteers, and others.

The San Francisco Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2008 Community Leadership Awards, which provide $10,000 each to individuals and $20,000 each to organizations. The winners:

— Van Jones, co-founder and board member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (Oakland, Calif.), for his work in youth and civil-rights activism.

— Malcolm Margolin, publisher and founder of Heyday Books (Berkeley, Calif.), which promotes California’s diverse cultures and provides a venue for work by multicultural, multilingual authors.

— Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, an educator and organizer who works across traditional racial and gender lines to help improve human relations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

— Asian Women’s Shelter (San Francisco), which helps Asian women and children living in the Bay Area escape family violence and rebuild their lives.

Nonprofit management. The Alliance for Nonprofit Management (Washington) has presented its 2008 Terry McAdam Book Award for the best new book about nonprofit management to Generations: The Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit, by Peter C. Brinckerhoff, published by the Fieldstone Alliance.

Public policy. The James Irvine Foundation (San Francisco) has announced the recipients of its 2008 Leadership Awards. This year’s recipients and their organizations, which each received a $125,000 grant for work on policy issues in California:

— Father Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries (Los Angeles) for his work to rehabilitate gang members, many of whom enter the program with criminal records, little formal education, and no previous job experience.

— America Bracho of Latino Health Access (Santa Ana) for her efforts to help new Latino immigrants receive needed health services and to advance policies that improve their well-being.

— José Cisneros, David Augustine, Ben Mangan, Leigh Phillips, and Lena Robinson of Bank of San Francisco for their work to provide low-income workers with better access to mainstream financial services, including low-cost bank accounts that previously might have been denied to them.

— Janet Knipe, Tonya Hightower, and Tiffany Johnson of California Youth Connection (San Francisco) for their efforts to transform child-welfare policy and assist thousands of current and former foster youths throughout the state.

— Diane Takvorian of the Environmental Health Coalition (San Diego) for her advocacy on behalf of low-income and ethnic communities that often bear the brunt of the effects of pollution and environmental toxins.

— Laurie Wayburn of the Pacific Forest Trust (San Francisco) for her work to conserve the state’s forests and to develop legislation, incentives, and protocols that include forests in climate-change policies in California.

Sports philanthropy. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Princeton, N.J.) and the Sports Philanthropy Project (Bethesda, Md.) have presented the 2008 Steve Patterson Sports Philanthropy Award for Excellence in Sports Philanthropy to the Steve Nash Foundation (Anchorage), established by Steve Nash, a point guard for the Phoenix Suns professional basketball team, and the Giants Community Fund, the nonprofit group associated with the San Francisco Giants professional baseball team.

The award recognized the Steve Nash Foundation for its work to provide educational, health, and other resources to poor children in Arizona, British Columbia, and Paraguay. The Giants Community Fund was honored for its efforts to encourage young people and their families in California, Nevada, and Oregon to lead healthy, productive lives. The recipients each received a $5,000 cash prize to advance their work.

Women. The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation (Charlotte Amalie, V.I.) has announced the recipients of its 2008 Women’s Rights Prize, which honors activists who have made successful efforts to advance equality in their respective societies. The three winners, who will share a $500,000 prize:

— Sapana Pradhan Malla, a lawyer and president of the Forum for Women, Law and Development who fights for legal changes to protect women’s reproductive rights in Nepal, including legislation to criminalize marital rape and the drafting of the Gender Equality Amendment Act and a model act to combat human trafficking.

— Yanar Mohammed, co-founder of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, which has opened shelters and safe houses for women threatened by domestic abuse, so-called honor killings by their families, and sectarian fighting, and which trains Iraqi female activists to confront intolerance.

— Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a scholar, therapist, and activist living in Israel who has worked to end domestic violence against Palestinian women, particularly what have been referred to as honor killings, and has lectured around the world on issues of violence against women in the Arab world and elsewhere.