Intriguing Nonprofit Innovation

Whoever said nonprofit news couldn't be exciting? Today I bring you a report of drugs, domestic violence and mental-health. What will happen to our heroine when she faces all of these ominous stumbling blocks in a month-long downward spiral?

Okay fine, there's no heroine. There's no downward spiral, unless you count this article. What this story does have, instead of the things I listed, are community courts, drug courts, re-entry courts, domestic violence courts and mental-health courts. Courts! See why I couldn't lead off with that? But now you're still here, so let me bring you the low-down.

Claremont Graduate University's Drucker Institute has announced the 2009 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, according to an institute press release. The first-place prize winner, you might have guessed by now, is the Center for Court Innovation, a nonprofit think tank that works to improve the justice system. The $100,000 top prize will help the center assist courts and criminal justice agencies in their mission to serve victims, fight crime and bolster the public's trust in the system.

The second-place winner offers another little bit of excitement. Receiving the $7,500 prize is Urban Farming, a Detroit-based NGO that commandeers unused land and other surfaces to grow gardens and provide fresh food to inner-city food deserts. They even grow food on rooftops and "edible walls" on buildings' exteriors.

The third-place winner brings us back to the beginning of this post. Receiving $5,000 is the Population Media Center in Shelburne, Vt., which communicates important social messages to vulnerable populations using native-language serialized melodramas such as prime-time soap operas.

So we're back to drugs, domestic violence and mental health, as well as long-lost twins, lovelorn ex-fiances and evil sisters-in-law. Though in this case, it's all for good.

Photo courtesy of Photo Denbow, via Flickr