April 29, 2012 | Read Time: 1 minute
The award: The Distinguished Service Award, given by the Council on Foundations at its annual conference to recognize an individual who has shown leadership and integrity in grant making
What it replaces: The council’s annual Distinguished Grantmaker Award. The organization wants to show it cares more about the impact of grants, not one individual’s accomplishments. This is the first year the new award has been given.
The winner’s breakthrough accomplishment: Michele Prichard’s work at the Liberty Hill Foundation helped grant makers recognize that fighting poverty requires reducing pollution and other environmental harms, says Rip Rapson, president of the Kresge Foundation.
About the winner: Ms. Prichard began working as a volunteer in 1982 and is now director of the Common Agenda program at the Liberty Hill Foundation. The program makes grants to grass-roots organizations to help them build alliances. Ms. Prichard was executive director of the Los Angeles foundation from 1989 to 1997, until she stepped down to spend more time with her family and to allow Liberty Hill to grow under different leadership.
Why she won: Kresge’s Mr. Rapson, who chaired the committee that selected Ms. Prichard, said she won for her “extraordinary record of being able to make a large movement of small investments and activities.”
