Somehow it seems appropriate that the nation's first nonprofit collaboration prize would result in a tie with the two finalists sharing the $250,000 cash prize. The Lodestar Foundation and the AIM Alliance announced yesterday that they had chosen both the YMCA and JCC of Greater Toledo, and the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas as co-winners of the first-ever national nonprofit collaboration prize. The competition attracted 644 applications which over the course of a year were winnowed down to 30 finalists, then to eight and finally to the co-winners. A list of the 120 quarterfinalists will be available on the Lodestar web site by Mar. 9th, and a video of the awards ceremony held in Phoenix, Arizona on March 5th will also be posted on April 1st. For a link to a press release about the award go here.
I will be interviewing the winners of the award and some of the folks involved in the selection process in the coming weeks, so look for those stories here or on the Stanford Social Innovation Review web site where I also blog.