ASAE Research Foundation Announces Three Innovation Grants Program Award Recipients

February 7, 2020

WASHINGTON—The ASAE Research Foundation named three awardees for the 2020 Innovation Grants Program (IGP). Two recipients will receive $10,000, with the third receiving a two-year $30,000 grant. The winners will be recognized during ASAE’s 2020 Great Ideas Conference, March 1-3, at the Grand America in Salt Lake City, Utah. These grants are funded through support from the SunTrust Foundation, Whiteford, Taylor & Preston L.L.P, GEICO, and Atlanta CVB.

The three awardees are:

Two-Year Award of $30,000
American Academy of PAs - PA Foundation
“Good by Association: Adopting Social Responsibility to Grow Membership, Increase
Engagement and Amplify Messaging”
Alexandria, VA

Focus NJ and NJ Business & Industry Association
“Partnerships for Effective Experiential Learning”
Trenton, NJ

Greater Cleveland Partnership
“Greater Cleveland Partnership | Towards a Racially Equitable Association”
Cleveland, Ohio

“On behalf of the committee, I want to congratulate the 2020 awardees. It is never an easy task for the committee to make its selections from a competitive field of applicants. This year’s awardees reflected creativity and commitment to innovation with projects focused on diversity and inclusion, experiential learning and increasing engagement across generations,” said Mark R. Nelson, Ph.D., MBA, CAE, 2020 chair of the IGP steering committee and Executive Director for the Merchant Acquirers' Committee. “We look forward to having them share their journey and add to the innovative efforts within the association community.”

Over the last eight years, the ASAE Research Foundation has received 322 applications and awarded a total of 31 innovation grants to organizations of varied types, sizes, locations, and industries. These numbers underscore the value of innovation in the association community.

“The 2020 award winners are examples of organizations that embrace innovation, and the inherent risk that often accompanies it, in order to effect change in society. Thanks to the support of the SunTrust Foundation, Whiteford, Taylor & Preston L.L.P, GEICO, and Atlanta CVB, we can continue to celebrate, recognize and invest in innovation within the association community. Congratulations to this year’s winners,” said Susan Robertson, CAE, interim ASAE president and CEO.

For more information about the program, visit the IGP website.

MEDIA CONTACT: Lauren Precker, CAE, lprecker@asaecenter.org, 202-626-2735.

About ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership
ASAE is celebrating 100 years of making society smarter, better and safer. The Centennial anniversary represents ASAE’s role as a leader and supporter of progress and innovation in the association industry. ASAE is a membership organization of more than 48,000 association executives and industry partners representing 7,400 organizations. Since it was established 100 years ago, its members have and continue to lead, manage, and work in or partner with organizations in more than a dozen association management disciplines, from executive management to finance to technology. With the support of the ASAE Research Foundation, a separate nonprofit entity, ASAE is the premier source of learning, knowledge, and future-oriented research for the association and nonprofit profession and provides resources, education, ideas, and advocacy to enhance the power and performance of the association and nonprofit community. For more information about the ASAE Research Foundation visit http://www.asaefoundation.org/.