The Elevate Prize Foundation

Mpindi Abaas grew up in Uganda seeing harmful and stereotypical representations of Africa in the news. He then co-founded Media Challenge Initiative to build the next generation of journalists to ensure the narratives, stories, and voices of Ugandan (and other African journalists) are heard. Since 2012, they’ve worked with 3,000+ journalism students, founded more than 10 youth media startups and their mobile newsroom helps 17 Ugandan universities. Next up: expanding to other African countries! We are so proud to be a part of Abaas and MCI’s journey.

BREAKING: Meet our 2025 Elevate Prize finalists! 🚀 🙌 Full list of all 20 leaders and their organizations is below. Now in its fifth year, the Elevate Prize is designed to maximize impact, champion social entrepreneurs, and Make Good Famous. This year’s group of finalists reflects these commitments and a wide range of issues including work focused on the arts, conservation, and mental health. After this phase, our 10 Elevate Prize winners will be announced in early 2025. Stay tuned! Congratulations to all of our finalists and a big thank you to all our nominating partners! Get to know them here: https://lnkd.in/exiv8bb9 FULL LIST: 👇 - All Voting is Local & Hannah Fried - Amani Global Works & Jacques Sebisaho, MD, MPA - Center for Countering Digital Hate & Imran Ahmed - Conserve Global & Andrew Parker - CreatiVets & Richard Casper - Essential & Fre Tachea - Gold House & Bing Chen - Harlem Grown & Tony Hillery - Healthy Learners & Ignicious Bulongo - Kabakoo Academies & Michèle Traoré - Keseb & Yordanos Eyoel - Moms First & Reshma Saujani - The Neurodiversity Alliance & David Flink - NĀTIFS.org & Sean Sherman - One Degree | 1degree.org & Rey Faustino - Parity & Bree Jones - Proximity Designs & Phyu Hninn Nyein (She/Her) - The REACH Institute (REsource for Advancing Children’s Health) & Lisa Hunter Romanelli, Ph.D. - rwanda wildlife conservation association & Olivier Nsengimana - TeenSmart Internacional & Adriana Gómez Gómez

The one and only Elevate Prize GET LOUD Award winner Nikki Gane-Butler & her organization Dignity For Divas are featured on PEOPLE Magazine | PEOPLE.com! Nikki's story is incredibly inspiring and moving. A survivor of domestic violence and formerly homeless herself, Nikki created Dignity For Divas in 2012 to support “vulnerable women rebuild their lives.” They have since supported over 15,000 (!) women — and are looking to expand. And, yes, Nikki was also a backup dancer to Sir-Mix-A-Lot, who was also interviewed for this article! We're so proud to have had a part in Nikki's journey and to have helped her story come to life on PEOPLE. #MakeGoodFamous in action! Learn all about Nikki here: https://lnkd.in/eMBz79hR

Winners Spotlight🌟 on the incredible Isabelle Kamariza, founder of Solid'Africa, Elevate Prize 2024 winner and most recently the winner of the Global Citizen Disruptor Award! 🥘 Fresh, healthy meals are the exception in most low-income hospitals and school settings worldwide—even though nutritious food is critical for healing and learning. 🥘 In Rwanda, food is not covered by public health insurance and, therefore, many vulnerable patients, especially those from low-income backgrounds, lack access to proper meals, hindering their recovery. Additionally, in public schools, Rwandan students did not have access to high nutritional value meals. 🥘 That’s where Solid’Africa came in! Founded in 2010, Solid’Africa is a response to the critical need for adequate nutrition in Rwanda’s public hospitals AND schools. 🥘 They are on track to have distributed more than 11 *million* meals by the end of 2024. We're so proud to have Isabelle and the entire Solid'Africa team in the Elevate family! Swipe to learn more about them.

"My biggest accomplishment is ensuring kids are able to stay in school." This #WorldFoodDay, meet Wawira Njiru, Elevate Prize winner and founder of Food For Education, an organization that provides nutritious, warm meals to 450,000 students every day across Kenya (and soon to be across Africa) so they can stay in school—and thrive. By 2025, they will feed over 1 million kids a day and by 2030, their goal is to feed 3 million (!) a day. They also have the biggest green kitchen in all of Africa! We're so proud to be a part of Wawira and F4E's journey. PS: Stay tuned for more in our Rapid Fire Questions series with our winners!

2024 Elevate staff retreat complete! ✅ 🍁 Last week, the entire Elevate team went away to the Finger Lakes in Upstate NY for a week of team building, connection, and care. It was a full Camp Elevate experience -- we told stories, practiced archery, hiked in the crisp air, made s'mores, and sang around a bonfire. We looked back on the history of our organization and made plans for our future. We laughed, we cried, we nurtured our souls. Grateful for this time together! Thank you to team Fearless and Eduardo Placer for guiding us and making the experience special!

This #IndigenousPeoplesDay, sharing Elevate Prize winner Crystal Echo Hawk’s powerful message to Hollywood: Center Native voices and values in stories — and as contemporary people. Cc: IllumiNative Org #MakeGoodFamous

Very proud to see Elevate Prize winners Wawira Njiru & Food For Education as well as Elevate Prize Founder's Award winners David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc & Every Cure win The Audacious Project for 2024! Every year, Audacious selects a cohort of big and bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. We love seeing members of our Elevate family among this incredible group. Greatly deserved! Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eWU2b946

We're #hiring! We've opened two more incredibly important and exciting roles at Elevate. 🚀 Senior Manager, Impact Initiatives: This person will manage and execute key initiatives across the Foundation, including the Make Good Famous Summit, the Elevate Prize Catalyst Award, the Foundation’s impact analyses, and development and fundraising efforts. 🚀 Social Media Manager: Responsible for leading our social media presence, this person is a total creative AND strategic social media rockstar who will be crafting and executing innovative content that take our social media presence to the next level, building partnerships, delivering on data insights and more. 🚀 Development Director:  A top tier fundraising professional who will build our fundraising capacity from the ground up! Please share with your networks! Swipe to learn more and apply here: https://lnkd.in/eePkdBqi

We were thrilled to join Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security annual #HRCAwards this year honoring two incredible peacebuilding organizations, now more than ever: Women of the Sun and Women Wage Peace. For the first time in the history of this ceremony, both organizations received $25,000 in unrestricted funds from our foundation as part of our Elevate Prize GET LOUD initiative. “Tired of wars and tired of death, we decided to create a partnership - without pointing fingers or blaming each other and speaking in a loud voice - saying that Palestinian mothers and Israeli mothers refuse to have their children killed,” said Reem Hajajreh, founder of Women of the Sun. Together, the two organizations work closely, even creating in 2019 the “Mothers Call” (signed by Pope Francis!), calling for an end to the cycle of bloodshed and ultimately for peace. “We can see in history that when women from both sides come together, good things can happen and sustainable peace can ensue,” said Angela Scharf, Women Wage Peace’s foreign relations coordinator. We couldn’t agree more. Thank you for the collaboration, GWIPS and Hillary Clinton, and welcome to the Elevate family, Women of the Sun and Women Wage Peace.