Awards of Achievement
Each year, The Frist Foundation makes grants to recognize outstanding management through its Awards of Achievement program. In September 2011, the foundation awarded $105,000 in grants to nine agencies. Winners in each of three categories received $20,000 unrestricted grants, and two finalists in each category received grants of $7,500 apiece. The 2010 grant recipients can be viewed on video by clicking here. This year's categories and results are as follows:
- Innovation in Action: The winner in this category was Big Brother Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, recognized for an innovative program that tapped parents' ideas to improve the agency's mentoring relationships. The two finalists in the category were Martha O'Bryan Center, which set up a successful academic support program on the top floor of Stratford High School, and Saddle Up!, which dealt with its perennial waiting lists by taking on provisional riders to get a taste of the program while remaining on the list.
- Making a Difference: The winner was Martha O'Bryan Center, which developed a comprehensive parent-education program called Tied Together. Finalists in this category were Thistle Farms, a social enterprise program through which former prostitutes from Magdalene House develop job skills, and The Contributor, a newspaper sold by some 400 homeless people to help sustain themselves.
- Team Building: Nashville CARES was the winner for its broad-based HIV screening program. Finalists were Hands on Nashville, which managed the efforts of more than 25,000 volunteers cleaning up after Nashville's historic floods in 2010, and The Coalition for Healthy Aging, for its utilization of multiple employees and volunteers to do health outreach to vulnerable people.
The awards were established in 1985 to encourage and recognize outstanding nonprofit management. Over the years, the program as attracted more than 500 nominations from Nashville nonprofit organizations. The Center for Nonprofit Management (CNM) has administered the awards program since 1993.
The 2011 awards were announced at CNM's Salute to Excellence banquet. For more information on the Awards of Achievement, visit the CNM website at http://www.cnm.org.