Ford Foundation Announces Winners Of Leadership Awards

20 Recognized for Outstanding Leadership in U.S. Communities

New York, N.Y., September 20, 2001 - The Ford Foundation today announced the first winners of its Leadership for a Changing World (L.C.W.) awards program. The 20 awardees, selected from 36 finalists in a pool of more than 3,000 nominations, represent individuals and leadership teams that are getting results tackling tough social problems in communities across the United States. Each will receive $100,000 to advance their work and an additional $30,000 to strengthen their skills and for other supporting activities over the next two years.

Leadership for a Changing World, launched in September 2000, is a program of the Ford Foundation in partnership with the Washington-based Advocacy Institute and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. It will recognize another 20 awardees in each of the next two years, for a total of 60. The program has four goals: to recognize the achievements of outstanding leaders who are not well-known outside their immediate communities or fields, to provide financial and other support for their work, to conduct research that will explore how leadership is perceived, created and sustained, and to encourage a public conversation about community leadership.

L.C.W. awardees demonstrate a kind of leadership that is particularly effective in addressing the complex social realities of contemporary communities. They include people who have skillfully built consensus and overcome divisive issues, mobilizing diverse groups, from grass roots to government, that address a range of social problems. Many have gotten results by bridging divisions of race, ethnicity, ideology, class and economic disparity.

Working in teams as well as individually, this year’s awardees direct efforts that include community initiatives to combat environmental pollution and address its health affects; securing long-term care and housing for people with H.I.V./AIDS as well as raising awareness about prevention; and promoting environmentally sound economic development in depressed communities. Among the awardees are immigrants who have organized broad coalitions to secure better working and living conditions for fellow immigrants and other low-income workers, Native Americans that have helped their tribes break through isolation and poverty to renew cultural traditions and tackle social and economic problems, and the founder of a multiethnic theater company that helps communities use theater to encourage discussions of tough local issues. Other awardees are helping female inmates improve their lives in prison, pioneering a holistic approach to the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, and helping welfare recipients press for access to social services and job opportunities while also having a voice in policies that affect them.

To be eligible for a Leadership for a Changing World award, candidates must be nominated by someone familiar with their work who can attest to their qualifications. Nominations are reviewed by a team of readers. Subsequent levels of review include regional selection committees and site visits to the recommended finalists. A national committee, the Advocacy Institute and the Ford Foundation select the 20 awardees.

This year's National Selection Committee was co-chaired by Emmett E. Carson, president and C.E.O. of the Minneapolis Foundation and Dorothy Stoneman, president of YouthBuild USA. Members included: Diana Autin, executive director of Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey; Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the A.F.L. - CIO; David Dodson, president of MDC, Inc.; Peter Edelman, professor at Georgetown University Law School; Don Fraser, former mayor of Minneapolis; Cynthia M. LeBlanc, deputy superintendent of Hayward Unified School District; Xuan Nguyen-Sutter, executive director of the Refugee Women's Network, Inc.; Donna Russell Red Wing, “outgiving” project director at the Gill Foundation; and Makani Themba-Nixon, consultant.

As part of a two-year program, awardees will meet several times annually with their co-winners and participate in a research project, led by the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, that is exploring how community leadership is developed and sustained.

The Advocacy Institute is accepting nominations for the next round of awards. For more information, visit the program’s web site at www.leadershipforchange.org or call (202) 777-7575. Information about the program can also be found on the Ford Foundation’s Web site at www.fordfound.org

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation, and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Russia. www.fordfound.org

The Advocacy Institute, founded in 1985, works to make a difference around the world by strengthening movements for political, social and economic justice through leadership support, networking and development. With its partners, it helps make democratic institutions accountable. The institute’s actions link it to a global community of grass-roots activists and nongovernmental organizations that tackle critical human rights issues such as gender equity, peace, sustainable development, public health, ending poverty and protecting the environment. www.advocacy.org

The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, established in 1938, offers advanced programs leading to the professional degrees of Master of Public Administration, Master of Urban Planning, Master of Science in Management, and Doctor of Philosophy. Through these programs, the Wagner School educates the future leaders of public, nonprofit and health institutions as well as private organizations serving the public sector. As the largest school of public service in the country, it is committed to preparing people who can translate ideas into action. www.nyu.edu/wagner