2010

The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta which has partnered with youth aging out of the foster care system through the Metropolitan Atlanta Youth Opportunities Initiative. This partnership began in 2003 and focuses on empowering foster youth to advocate on behalf of the issues that affect them. As a result of this program, Georgia policymakers extended Medicaid benefits up to age 21—a key public policy priority for the youth.

2009

The Boston Foundation is being honored for creating the Commonwealth Housing Task Force, a broadly inclusive group of housing experts that drafted groundbreaking legislation to promote Smart Growth housing in Massachusetts. Since 2003, the Task Force has resulted in 27 communities committing to more than 9,000 units of environmentally sound, affordable housing in Massachusetts.

2008

McCormick Foundation. McCormick Foundation is being honored for its long-term commitment to improving education for at-risk children under the age of five in Illinois. Since the inception of its early education giving programs, the foundation has considered impacting public policy to be a critical component of strategy. Over the past 14 years, the foundation has invested in a broad range of activities to improve policy and funding for early childhood, including professional development for early childhood educators, public policy advocacy and research, organizational capacity building, and raising public awareness of early childhood issues. McCormick Tribune Foundation focuses its giving on children, communities, and country, helping to build active and engaged citizens and to improve our nation’s civic health.

2007

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation (Boston, MA) is being honored for its Roadmap to Coverage initiative, which was conceived in early 2004 when the number of people without health insurance was growing in Massachusetts but there was little agreement about how to address the problem. In fact, there was not even agreement about the number of uninsured in the Commonwealth. The foundation sponsored the Roadmap to Coverage initiative in an effort to break the political log jams around extending health care coverage to Massachusetts’ uninsured. The foundation’s specific goals for the initiative were: to provoke thoughtful public debate about the problem of the uninsured; to inform that debate with rigorous, independent, non-partisan information and analysis; and to engage policy makers and leaders in developing a practical, phased-in plan to extend coverage to most, if not all, Massachusetts residents.

2006

The Blandin Foundation (Grand Rapids, MN) was honored for Vital Forests, Vital Communities, an initiative to strengthen and diversify Minnesota’s forest-based economy, promote the forest’s ecological health and support surrounding communities. Through this initiative, the foundation secured state funding for a pilot third-party certification program for forests. In addition, the foundation protected up to 75,000 acres of environmentally important private forestland by collaborating with federal and state government and other stakeholders to fund conservation easement projects near Itasca, Minnesota.

2005

The Maytree Foundation  is being recognized for its efforts to reform immigration policy in Canada. As a result of the Maytree Foundation’s initiatives and public awareness campaign, the Canadian Parliament enacted legislation to allow refugees who had not yet received permanent resident status to apply for and receive student loans for post-secondary education. Maytree’s leadership, advocacy and coalition building also resulted in the creation of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, a broad-based regional public-private council that aims to enable full work force participation by skilled immigrants.

Recommended Reading: 
Alan Broadbent Acceptance Speech 
Foundation News and Commentary feature article on the Maytree Foundation 

2004

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund  is being recognized for its Innovative Brownfields program, an initiative that encourages New York to enforce the cleanup of polluted and abandoned land in urban centers. As a result, the New York State Brownfields Law was enacted in 2003.

Recommended Reading: 
Council Announces 2004 Award Winners, Council Columns, April/May 2004, Vol. 23, No. 2.

2003

The New York Community Trust  is being recognized for creating the September 11th Fund, hours after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. The Trust demonstrated that a community foundation faced with a disaster of unprecedented scale could speedily form partnerships with key public and private institutions to create and manage a new entity to undertake both emergency and long-term relief and recovery.

The Open Society Institute  is being honored for its risk-taking body of work that includes drug policy, reproductive rights, welfare reform, criminal justice and civil rights. The organization works to change public policy and public opinion, with the goal of achieving fair and equitable policies on behalf of marginalized people, such as immigrants and low-income and minority people.

The Rosenberg Foundation is being recognized as a small grantmaker that has been influential in its work related to immigration policy and the rights of immigrants and other minorities. Over the past 25 years, the foundation has advocated policy positions and built networks and coalitions to ensure implementation of approved policies.

Recommended Reading: 
Gara LaMarche acceptance speech.
Leaders, Risk-Takers and Advocates, FN&C, May/June 2003, Vol. 44, No. 3.
Commentary: Where's the Anger?, FN&C, July/August 2003, Vol. 44, No. 4.

2002

The McKnight Foundation was recognized for helping welfare reform succeed in Minnesota. Since 1997, the Minneapolis-based foundation has committed $27 million aimed at filling the gaps left by sweeping federal and state reforms that require most welfare recipients to find jobs. The foundation helped create 22 cross-sector partnerships-covering 86 of Minnesota's 87 counties-with employers, governments, nonprofits and others to jointly develop education, training, childcare, transportation and mentoring strategies to support workers. Through its programs, The McKnight Foundation persuaded public and private agencies to assume responsibility as a community for successful transitions from welfare to work.

Recommended Reading: 
Rip Rapson acceptance speech.
Making Welfare to Work Work, FN&C, May/June 2002, Vol. 43, No. 3.