Grace and Grit

2008 was an amazing roller-coaster of a year on so many levels, filled with soaring highs and abysmal lows. A couple of the highlights: The Phillies won the World Series — hey, we’re in Philadelphia; it was a big deal (but whether it made the Eagles’ smashed Super Bowl dreams any less painful is debatable); and, oh yeah, history was made in the political arena when the American people gave Barack Obama the presidency.

And we had close to 80 nominations for the 2009 Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards. No … I’m not comparing that to the presidential election (or even to the World Series), but it sure made us feel pretty good.

At the same time, it made the selection process even harder than it’s been in the past because, of course, we couldn’t give everyone an award. But every one of the people nominated, both by readers and FS staff, deserve to be recognized. Each and every one of them is, indeed, a fundraising star in his or her own right. Each and every one has shown the grace and grit that sit at the heart of fundraising for nonprofit organizations, whether it be over the course of a year, a decade, a career or a lifetime.

Here, we present 16 awards in the Lifetime Achievement, Fundraising Professional of the Year, Fundraising Stars, Rising Stars and Special Awards categories. Choosing them was easy; not choosing the others was extremely difficult. But as difficult as the process was, it also was uplifting because it reminded us, once again, how much passion, compassion, creativity, dedication and dogged determination is out there in the fundraising world.

We want to thank the people who took the time to make the nominations and, of course, all of those folks who were nominated (whether they made the final cut or not). Really … any one of you, our readers, could have been a winner. So thank you for everything you do. What you do matters, and the world is a better place for it.