PROVIDENCE – Five Rhode Island-based nonprofits will receive 2017 Best Practice awards from the Rhode Island Foundation Tuesday, according to a Monday statement by the organization.
Clinica Esperanza, Day One, Foster Forward, Hattie Ide Chaffee Home and Trinity Repertory Co. – the five nonprofits that will be honored Tuesday – “emerged from a highly competitive process and an impressive group of nominees,” Jill Pfitzenmayer, vice president of the foundation’s Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence, said in prepared remarks. “There is something in each of their remarkable achievements that can help any nonprofit become even more effective.”
Sponsored by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, the awards recognize collaboration, communications, innovation, leadership and volunteer engagement. They are as follows:
- The Volunteer Engagement Award will be presented to Providence’s Clinica Esperanza for its more than 7,000 hours of volunteer service following recruitment of physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, medical students, pharmacy students and others to help the outfit, which provides health care to uninsured adults.
- Day One, also out of Providence, will be awarded the Collaboration Award for its implementation of the Uniform Response Protocol, which improves how the state addresses the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
- The Innovation Award will be given to East Providence’s Foster Forward in recognition of its Works Wonders program – a comprehensive, trauma-informed career-readiness program for youth who have aged out of foster care.
- Cutting hospital emergency room admission rates by 60 percent for clients discharged after short-term stays, East Providence’s Hattie Ide Chaffee Home will be presented the Communications Award.
- Highlighting the short-term and long-term financial moves set in motion by the Trinity Repertory Co., which were designed to maximize stakeholder buy-in and address critical financial and strategic issues facing the theater, the Providence theater will receive the Leadership Award.
Each award recipient will be given a $1,000 grant, a promotional video highlighting their work as well as tuition waivers to any Rhode Island Foundation INE professional-development workshop or seminar taking place in the next year.
The awards ceremony will take place at 5:30 p.m. at the BCBSRI Providence headquarters at 500 Exchange St.
In 2016, the foundation awarded a record $45 million in grants to organizations addressing the state’s most pressing issues and needs of diverse communities.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
