Recognizing individuals who are addressing some of America’s most difficult social problems Manhattan Institute is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. EIN#13-2912529 Mission Statement he Manhattan Institute’s Social Entrepreneur- The William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime ship Awards honor nonprofit leaders who have Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship founded innovative private organizations to help Taddress some of America’s most pressing social problems. The Simon Prize recognizes individuals who have founded and The awards include two prizes. The William E. Simon led organizations that have been clearly effective in their work Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneur- and who have emerged as prominent public leaders in their ship is presented to the leader of an organization that has fields. Past winners include Geoffrey Canada, whose Harlem been both demonstrably effective and widely influential. Children’s Zone has helped thousands of families break the An honorarium of $100,000 accompanies the Simon Prize. cycle of intergenerational poverty; Brian Lamb, whose C- SPAN networks have brought the business of the American The Richard Cornuelle Award for Social Entrepreneurship government into the homes of ordinary citizens; Eunice Ken- is given each year to up to five organizations that have dem- nedy Shriver, whose key role in the Special Olympics helped onstrated both effectiveness and the promise of significant change how the developmentally disabled are viewed; and impact. A prize of $25,000 is presented to the organization Daniel Biederman, founder of the Bryant Park Corporation, founded or led by the award winner. 34th Street Partnership, and Grand Central Partnership, The Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Awards are supported by funds from the William E. Simon Foundation, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, and the Ohnell Family Foundation. Howard Husock, vice president for policy research and publications at the Manhattan Institute, is director of the program. For the Cornuelle Awards and the Simon Prize, nominations may be submitted by anyone familiar with a person’s or group’s activities, except for a current employee of that person or group. Award applications for 2017 will be available online at www.manhattan-institute.org/social-entrepreneurship-initiative after January 1, 2017, and will be accepted until March 1, 2017. Winners are selected by the Manhattan Institute, with the assistance of the following selection committee: Howard Husock, Manhattan Institute; Cheryl Keller, foundation consultant; Leslie Lenkowsky, Indiana University; Alicia Manning, Bradley Foundation; Adam Meyerson, The Philanthropy Roundtable; Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute; James Piereson, William E. Simon Foundation/Manhattan Institute; and Dane Stangler, Kauffman Foundation. SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AWARDS 2016 1 whose vision and use of private, nonprofit management preclude consideration. The Cornuelle Award recognizes the and finance has restored and maintained some of New York creative energy of the nonprofit sector by highlighting new City’s greatest public spaces. ideas and approaches even by mature organizations. Nominations are accepted for the Simon Prize, but potential Any nonprofit organization that provides a direct service to winners are not limited to those nominated. address a public problem can be nominated for this award. Examples of such organizations include: Richard Cornuelle Award for Social Entrepreneurship • Private social-services groups that assist the poor and disad- vantaged with services designed to improve their prospects Throughout its history, the United States has been distin- for success and upward mobility in American society guished by the capacity of citizens to address social problems • Reformative organizations that help people cope with through new organizations established through private ini- moral or psychological problems, such as drug addic- tiative. From Clara Barton and the American Red Cross to tion and criminal behavior Millard Fuller and Habitat for Humanity, Americans have • Education groups that improve children’s educational consistently come forward, without prompting or assistance achievement and possibilities through mentoring, from government, to organize nonprofit action to improve counseling, or other after-school programs American society by providing services to those in need. It • Community groups that improve the quality of life in is those who follow in such footsteps whom the Manhattan their neighborhoods Institute seeks to recognize with its Richard Cornuelle Award • Conservancies that use private donations from corpo- for Social Entrepreneurship. rations or individuals to purchase land and preserve it from development The characteristics of winning organizations have included: As many as 10 organizations may qualify for site visits, the • Energetic founding leaders with strong visions impressions from which will augment those provided by • Provision of specific services to clearly-targeted written nominations. Nonprofit organizations that engage groups of those in need in political advocacy or that bring legal actions, or whose • Creative, entrepreneurial ways of meeting the primary activities are in response to government grants, are organization’s goal not eligible for this award. Individual schools are not con- • Significant earned income and a diverse base of donors sidered for the award, but novel approaches to education • Clear and measurable results may be considered. • Use of volunteers A complete list of award winners, 2001–16, can be found at: Recognition is reserved for those organizations whose guiding www.manhattan-institute.org/social-entrepreneurship-initiative purpose and function stem from private initiatives and ideas, but acceptance of some government funding does not, in itself, 2 The Man Who Named the “Independent Sector”: The Legacy of Richard Cornuelle By William Schambra a libertarian economic genius like Mr. Libertarianism may have offered a philo- von Mises could find in the late 1940s, sophically devastating analysis of the when big-government devotees utterly failures of government social programs dominated the American academy. and the superiority of free markets, in his view. But it failed to speak to our Mr. Cornuelle became a program officer irrepressible humanitarian impulses, for at one of the early foundations on the which government programs, however right, the William Volker Fund, where faulty, seemed to be the only politically he mined economics journals for telltale plausible expression. indications of libertarian tendencies. Once he discovered these scholars—typi- In Reclaiming the American Dream, Mr. cally scattered and disconnected loners Cornuelle outlined a way to deal with at lower-tier colleges—the foundation urgent social needs in a manner both Richard C. Cornuelle (1927–2011) would offer them what modest financial humane and free. Drawing on Alexis de support it could afford. Tocqueville (by no means as commonly ith the death of Richard cited then as today), he noted that “as Cornuelle in 2011 at In a time when lurid headlines tell stories a frontier people, accustomed to inter- the age of 84, America’s of behemoth conservative foundations dependence, we developed a genius for “independentW sector” has lost one of its buying and selling public policy at will, solving common problems. People joined most faithful and vigorous champions. it is hard indeed to imagine these hard- together in bewildering combinations to scrabble origins. As Mr. Cornuelle put found schools, churches, opera houses, Indeed, one of his claims to fame it, free-market advocates could fit into a co-ops, hospitals, to build bridges and was the very invention of the term phone booth, possessed by the “haunt- canals, to help the poor.” “independent sector,” deployed in his ing, subliminal suspicion that we were landmark 1965 volume Reclaiming the fighting not just a losing battle but a war Mr. Cornuelle maintained that we had all American Dream as a way to describe, already lost.” but forgotten this vast array of voluntary in the words of the book’s subtitle, “the civic associations—an “important third role of private individuals and volun- In a sentiment familiar to any founda- force,” which he termed “the independent tary associations” in our national life. tion program officer, Mr. Cornuelle soon sector”—in our growing reliance on gov- cast covetous glances at the Volker grants ernment-financed, centrally administered, Richard Cornuelle was a life long lib- going not to his projects but rather to professionally delivered social services. ertarian, convinced that “man’s power the small, local humanitarian groups over man should be strictly limited and that William Volker, who created the But he insisted that the human “desire that any design for social improvement foundation, said his philanthropy should to serve” was just as primal and power- that depended on government for its also support. Instead of converting those ful as the yearning for political power execution was ill-advised.” grants to his cause, however, they soon or material gain, and once unleashed, it converted Mr. Cornuelle to theirs—the could re-energize our voluntary associa- He developed this political outlook notion that human suffering was best tions and address our problems without in his studies with one of its pioneers, reduced by local voluntary efforts. Mr. oppressive bureaucracies. Ludwig von Mises,