Common Good Challenge winning teams named
ACF, The Arizona Republic, and ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy are pleased to announce the three winners in the Common Good Challenge, the fifth philanthropic prize competition offered under the New Arizona Prize banner.
A total of 38 teams met the deadline to submit projects for consideration by the 32-member evaluation panel and six teams scored highly enough to qualify as finalists. The finalists pitched their solutions on Wednesday, May 24, in front of a live audience and a nine-member Selection Committee, who selected the three winning teams. Each will receive $100,000 in grant funding to develop their project. Winners were judged on their ability to develop cooperative solutions to significant community challenges.
“We are honored that so many Arizonans participated in the Common Good Challenge as applicant teams, evaluators, and community supporters. They represent the best of us: people from all walks of life, working together across boundaries to design solutions to some of our state’s most pressing needs,” said Jaime Dempsey, ACF Acting Chief Program & Community Engagement Officer. “The intent of this competition was to embrace the idea that our society is stronger—we are stronger—when people with diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences work in coalition to explore meaningful responses to complex issues.”
The three Common Good Challenge winners are:
Team: Anytown Leadership Program, Inc.
Project: Anytown: Developing Leaders for a Better Tomorrow
Counties Served: Coconino, Gila, Maricopa, Pima, Yavapai, & Yuma
Hate speech and hate crimes are dominating headlines. People are openly harassed because of their race, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs, and more. It doesn’t have to be this way. At Anytown, we believe differences make us stronger and that young people are the key to a brighter future.
Team: Boys to Men Tucson, Inc.
Project: Healthy Intergenerational Masculinity (HIM) Initiative
County Served: Pima
To address crises related to how we raise boys—including gender-based violence, the achievement gap, school shootings, addiction, untreated mental health—a diverse coalition of community leaders launched a Healthy Intergenerational Masculinity Initiative. This community-based, systems-change project emerges from the wisdom that when men and boys practice wholeness together, our communities are safer.
Team: Read Better Be Better
Project: Read Better Be Better After-School Literacy Instruction
County Served: Maricopa
Read Better Be Better is the only local nonprofit pairing middle school Leaders with 3rd grade Readers in a program facilitated by college education majors to solve Arizona’s literacy crisis. With this unique cross-age peer tutoring, Read Better Be Better serves two students simultaneously while providing future educators with valuable classroom experience.
To view team videos and learn more about the winners and finalists, visit commongoodchallenge.org. The remaining three finalists also received $10,000 grants to cover the costs of participating and further developing their projects.
The New Arizona Prize is aimed at creating the Arizona of tomorrow: a state where innovation thrives, ingenuity is supported, and the best thinking is harnessed to create long-term, positive solutions to persistent needs. While continuing to award grants, scholarships, and impact loans that topped $145 million in its last fiscal year, the Arizona Community Foundation hosts philanthropic prize competitions designed to attract new thinking and innovation. Through these open, fair, and transparent competitions, ACF, in partnership with The Arizona Republic and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy, deploys a portion of its philanthropic resources to generate innovative solutions to our state’s challenges.