Drucker Institute

The Drucker Institute Announces Call for Applications for $100,000 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation

• By druckeradmin

The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University has announced a call for applications for the 2010 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation.

The first-place prize is $100,000, thanks to a generous grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation. The second-place award is $7,500, and the third-place prize is $5,000.

The award application is now available. The submission deadline is July 1. (If you have questions about the application or award process, please refer to our FAQ page.) All IRS-certified 501(c)3 organizations are eligible to apply.

Administered annually since 1991, the Drucker Award is granted to a social-sector organization that demonstrates Drucker’s definition of innovation—change that creates a new dimension of performance. In addition, the judges look for programs that are highly effective and that have made a difference in the lives of the people they serve.

Last year, the Drucker Award application was revamped so that, in addition to collecting information from nonprofit organizations seeking the prize, it would provide them with some of Peter Drucker’s key insights on innovation. “Our own innovation was to turn the award application into a teaching tool—and, we hope, a catalyst for action,” explained Rick Wartzman, the Drucker Institute’s executive director.

Hundreds of nonprofits completed a survey about the application process, and 94% reported that it gave them a better understanding of how the particular program they’d nominated for the award was, in fact, innovative. Some 87%, meanwhile, said the application would prompt them to explore additional opportunities for innovation in their work.

The winners of this year’s competition will be invited to attend the Drucker Innovation Forum later this fall. At this intimate, invitation-only event, participants will gather for a uniquely cross-sector conversation about strategies for making innovation systematic and effective within an organization.