2016 Community Leadership Awards finalists named

Mr. Owens has been involved with the charity since 1999, when it offered respite and emotional support to his family when his young daughter was being treated for cancer.

Since that time, he has been an active volunteer and fundraiser, raising more than $1 million for the non-profit.

The charity’s flagship program, MyMusicRx, brings therapeutic music to hospitals — including sing-alongs, mobile music carts and live concerts. The innovative program is currently running a clinical trial to measure the healing effects of customized therapeutic music on postoperative pediatric patients, in partnership with Randall Children’s Hospital.

Other programs include the “Caring Cabin” on the Oregon coast, where families and sick children can stay for free on weekends; and the Chemo Pal mentor program, which matches adult buddies with young patients, providing respite care and companionship that gives parents a little time break.

What keeps Mr. Owens involved?

“The satisfaction of just helping,” he said. “I will never forget the emotion I felt when they reached out to my family so many years ago.”

Frank Lento, senior vice president of wealth management at Merrill Lynch in Paramus, N.J., wanted the best for his toddler Kate. He and the other parents decided to take charge of their children’s fates and founded their own school: the Institute for Educational Achievement.

“My wife and I were told there was a good chance our daughter would never speak,” he said. “Deep down, we knew better. We said ‘Now we’ve got to go to war. We have to get this done for her.’”

A board member for 18 years, Mr. Lento has provided financial guidance and helped raise millions to build and maintain the tuition-free school.

IEA serves about 30 students, ages six to 21, with 30 teachers providing one-on-one attention.

Twenty students have graduated so far, including Kate, who now works at a job she loves.

“These 20 graduates have saved the economy about $60 million dollars,” Mr. Lento said. “They’re not going to be a burden to society because they’ll transition into regular schools and regular life and regular jobs.”

The IDD community includes those with Down syndrome, autism, fragile X, Williams syndrome, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury and other disabilities.

Mr. Klingman has been closely involved with Best Buddies since 1991, when he was contacted by founder Anthony Kennedy Shriver, who was continuing the work begun by his mother Eunice Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics decades earlier.

Best Buddies programs, now in 50 states and 50 countries, focus on four major divisions:

Student friendships: Middle-school, high-school and college students are matched one-on-one with individuals with disabilities.

Employee friendships: The same program as with students is offered to employees in the workplace.

Leadership development: Program participants receive training to speak and advocate for themselves.

Job placement: Employers are encouraged to hire members of the IDD community, especially for white-collar jobs such as mail room or data-entry work.

“Oftentimes, this population doesn’t have any friends outside the family,” Mr. Klingman said. “They suffer from social, physical, and economic isolation. Our programs are life-changing.”

“We were stranded on a desert island of grief,” she said. “We had no resources to help us cope.”

Information is crucial.

“It was comforting to me to eventually learn that more than 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness at the time of death,” Ms. Arveseth said.

The new chapter tapped into a significant unmet need.

“We’re stunned by the growth of the chapter and the interest,” she said. “We can’t keep up with it.”

The chapter has achieved much in its short history, including:

• Getting bills passed requiring suicide prevention education for all school employees and parents’ nights on suicide prevention in all schools.

• Providing suicide awareness, prevention and response training across the state.

• Instituting a fundraising walk, providing widespread awareness, hope and comfort to bereaved families and friends. In 2015, about 4,000 people raised more than $100,000.

• Decreasing the statewide ranking of suicide from the No. 3 cause of death in 2015 to No. 5 in 2016.
“Please remember this national hotline number: 800-273-TALK,” Ms. Arveseth said.

The mission of the nonprofit is to provide physical and emotional rehabilitation for disabled active military personnel and disabled veterans through fly-fishing, education and outings.

“The fishing is the tool to get to the end result,” Mr. Harman said. “It’s a completely benign, nonthreatening activity. They get so much by just being out in nature.”

The participants are referred by physical therapists, occupational therapists and counselors from the Veterans Administration. Activities are coordinated with national and local fishing clubs.

Currently, there are 212 programs throughout the U.S., Canada and Germany. In 2015, 3,500 volunteers helped 7,400 disabled vets and service members.

“Everyone involved gets an opportunity to interact with vets at a very low point in their lives,” Mr. Harman said. “They have life-altering injuries, both physical and psychological. They really need some support to move forward in their lives.”

“Fly-fishing, rivers — this is my quiet place,” he said. “I couldn’t think of a better way to say thank you to these vets than sharing something that’s been so important in my life.”

“My vision and inspiration came from my childhood, where I didn’t feel like I was included,” Mr. Coe said. “I wanted to create a nonprofit that had the ability to raise money for charities that couldn’t do it themselves, who were left out of mainstream fundraising.”

Since its inception, the all-volunteer charity led by Mr. Coe has raised about $4 million for small local and national charities, often chosen by the fundraising volunteers themselves.

Recipients include Keshet (an organization that serves children and adults with special needs), the National Stuttering Association, the Foundation for Retinal Research and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Two annual events — a golf and tennis tournament and a poker night — raise about $200,000 per year for charities.

If you want to start a charity, go for it, Mr. Coe advises.

“If you believe that what you’re doing can help others, be inspired to create your own vision,” he said. “I try to play without fear. Everything always has a way of working out.”

In addition to being a 10-year member of the board, Mr. Bryson spent five years as a Boys & Girls Clubs member in his youth.

As chairman, he has taken an innovative approach, instituting direct communications between board members and staff. The 30 board members break out into small meetings, each with a member of the six-person staff, to discuss program accomplishments and needs.

The change has made a difference.

“By taking them out of their traditional hands-off roles, we now have totally engaged board members,” Mr. Bryson said. “They’re doing what they’re interested in and helping the staffers do what they want to do, giving them a voice.”

Unmet needs have been uncovered and solutions offered, such as a new theater program, soccer activities and training in public speaking.

“I want to make this city better, and the best way for me to do it is to give the kids an opportunity to be successful,” Mr. Bryson said.

“I have lived a very full and active life as a paraplegic,” Mr. Jones said. “I have been blessed beyond explanation.”

Wishing to help others less fortunate, especially quadriplegics, in 2004 he co-founded and since then has run the Philadelphia chapter of the Buoniconti Fund, the fundraising arm of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, affiliated with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Mr. Jones and his volunteer team have raised close to $1.5 million over the past 12 years, averaging about $125,000 per year.

The Miami Project, after 27 years of research, is on the cusp of a potential breakthrough, and is conducting an FDA-approved Phase I clinical trial on the feasibility of transplanting certain cells essential for regenerating damaged spinal cords.

“We’re finally getting traction,” Mr. Jones said. “Reaching these long-term goals takes time. They can’t do it without the money. If we don’t pay the scientists, they’re going to go somewhere else and research something else.”

As a 12-year board member of his local Green Hills Family YMCA, he has been a nonstop fundraiser for the YMCA of Middle Tennessee. During this time, he helped raise more than $4.2 million to support the 368,000 people served annually by its 15 local Ys, and recruited more than 40 new volunteer leaders for different committees.
How has his involvement changed his life?

“I become aware that people are struggling,” Mr. Jordan said. “As an adult, I always had a membership for the fitness center. But until I joined the board, I didn’t know the Y was much more than just working out.”

In fact, the Y provides services in youth development, healthy living and social responsibility.

“I’m having an impact on the community by seeing the Ys stay open,” Mr. Jordan said. “The money we raise helps local Ys in less-affluent areas.”

His efforts strengthen the Y’s ability to boost its members.

“You have people walking through those doors hurting, and the Y provides a safe haven to come in and leave their troubles at the door,” Mr. Jordan said.

This achievement was made possible in just five years by Beauty for Ashes Uganda, a nonprofit founded in 2011 by Mr. Goff’s daughter, Brandi Lea, and Akwango Anne Grace Elotu of Uganda. The charity helps women in Uganda attain long-term economic sustainability.

The founders have pioneered an innovative model of developing small cooperatives for single mothers and widows, who suffer as the poorest and lowest-status group in their villages due to the traumas of war and AIDS.

A cooperative is a group of about 30 women, led by one woman, which becomes both a support group and a micro-business incubator. The group looks for opportunities for members to earn money to feed their families and build savings. In turn, the groups create their own small banks, which make loans to members.

Beauty for Ashes started with one cooperative in 2011 and is now supporting 37 cooperatives.

Mr. Goff, who is active in all aspects of the charity, makes a clear connection between his professional work and his charitable work.

“One of the reasons to be successful is to invest in other people’s lives,” he said.

In 2010, Michael T. Meltzer, a portfolio manager at Tocqueville Asset Management in New York, saw his friend, Maya Rowencak, feverishly struggling to buy and ship supplies to help orphans in the Philippines (and later, the Ukraine). Having recently lost her mother, she was moved to help children who were also missing a mother’s love, choosing the two countries that reflected her parents’ heritages.

Mr. Meltzer drew upon his experience in business development for nonprofits and offered to create a 501(c)3 for her. After he did, the growth and impact of the charity took off. For example, from 2012 to 2014, funds raised rose from $57,000 to $260,000.

The charity’s major programs are:

• Monthly sponsorship of a specific child providing clothes, food and tuition.

• A“Guardian Angel” fund to pay for private caregivers and therapists.

• “Margarita’s Hope,” a fund for special formula for kids who can’t digest solid food.

• An emergency medical fund for procedures such as surgery or chemotherapy.

“Literally, lives are being saved by having access to a little bit of money and love,” said Mr. Meltzer, who serves as board chairman and treasurer. “It’s something we Americans don’t quite understand.”

For the past eight years, he has been part of an elite 150-person global team whose members deploy at the drop of a hat to disaster sites worldwide. Deployments last a minimum of two weeks, and he goes twice a year.

“We do one thing: We provide temporary shelters,” he said. “It has been an incredible experience, offering an opportunity and the autonomy to go to a disaster area and make a difference. We are doing our absolute best to get the aid to those most vulnerable.”

ShelterBox assists survivors immediately after a disaster occurs, before reconstruction takes place. Each 49-gallon ShelterBox, weighing about 120 pounds, typically contains a 10-person tent, thermal blankets and groundsheets, water storage and purification equipment, solar lamps, cooking utensils, a basic tool kit, mosquito nets and a children’s activity pack.

The experiences are transformative, Mr. Tonkinson said.

“Every deployment is different, but I always come back with the same feelings: grateful to help and amazed that people who have lost everything still open their hearts to strangers,” he said. “It gives you perspective on how blessed we are.”

For this reason, Ms. Cooper and a client, educator Jana Karp, co-founded the Boston Youth Sanctuary in 2011, joining together Ms. Karp’s post-retirement vision and Ms. Cooper’s entrepreneurial experience and inspiration from the foster daughter she adopted.

The nonprofit serves children ages 6 to 11 with therapeutic after-school programs that include individual counseling, groups for learning coping mechanisms, and unstructured (but supervised) free time for practicing coping skills.

The children, often the younger siblings of gang members and suffering from domestic abuse, are all in special education and have post-traumatic stress disorder, Ms. Cooper said. They are referred to the program by social workers and the schools.

“A goal is to get their acting-out under control so they can return to regular school,” she said.

“[This nonprofit] all started with a question to my client — ‘What are your hopes and dreams?’” Ms. Cooper said. “But advisers should also ask clients, ‘What do you care about that could make the world a better place?’”

Its purpose is to help children with cancer enjoy normal childhood experiences and feel unconditional acceptance.
The nonprofit offers 11 recreational programs in five states, serving about 660 children each year. Programs include summer and winter camps for kids, camps for families, day camp, skiing and a dude ranch.

As chair since 2014, Ms. Huston has implemented best practices and greater structure at the board level, instituting program and cost analytics, clarifying responsibilities and expectations, improving outreach for volunteer and donor recruitment, streamlining channels of communication, and showing greater appreciation to volunteers by introducing a volunteer leadership award.

Results appeared swiftly: 2015 saw an 11% growth over 2014 in camper participation numbers, and an 86% growth in revenue.

Leadership has been a learning experience for her.

“You can be all heart, but you have to be a critical thinker. You have to make the hard calls,” Ms. Huston said.

“But I’ve become more tolerant. I listen more. I learned that everyone is not me.”

Mr. Nathanson instituted a strategic planning process that resulted in a road map to get big things done.

“Our goal is to be the ‘trusted enabler’ that brings industry, academia and government together to effect system change,” he said. “We set a big goal: to make brain tumors a chronic yet manageable disease by the year 2025.”

The way forward emphasizes three areas:

• Research: funding and creating partnerships among top research centers.

• Advocacy: convening research conferences and lobbying Congress.

• Working with industry: encouraging pharmaceutical attention to cancerous tumors.

“We help guide the research selection process and the research itself,” Mr. Nathanson said. “We have committees with scientists, both on staff and from the research community, who decide where to invest, whether in existing clinical trials or in research we wish to initiate.”

What does it take to succeed?

“You have to have a clear and strong mission,” Mr. Nathanson said. “You must be laser-focused and people have to be disciplined about following it”