Dear Friends, Colleagues and Comrades, 

I am thrilled to encourage you and activists/projects in your networks to apply for the Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership which will be awarded on Prize weekend, May 10-11 here in Kalamazoo.   Jurors for the Prize include renown human rights activists Angela Davis and former executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Cary Alan Johnson.
 
This is the debut year of our biennial prize weekend, which will bring 20 finalists to campus to showcase and share their work with our learning community.
 
Along with the $25,000 Global Prize (which could be awarded to a regional entrant), we will award a regional prize of $5,000.
Projects/applicants based in: Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph, Branch, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Van Buren, Allegan, Barry, Kent, Ottawa, and Muskegon counties are eligible for the regional prize.
 
We are excited to offer a prize competition that we envision as a ‘social justice TED’ sort of format – applicants upload an 8-10 minute video onto our application site and then just fill out a one page form https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/clprize/.  No grant application! 
 
We hope this accessible format will help us uncover original grassroots thinking and practice in social justice collaboration around the globe.  We want people to know:  just put out your breakthrough thinking and aspirations even if you don’t have a fully formed ‘project’ – this competition should unearth possibility and show us new ways forward.  We are equally excited to see ‘veteran’ works that demonstrate unsung and breathtaking outcomes. 
 
Throughout prize weekend, applicants will present their work in person and K College students, faculty, staff and community members will have the opportunity to discuss this ground-breaking work with finalists and in small break-out sessions.
 
So could you send along the link?  Push this out on a great blog?  Perhaps you have an e-newsletter or some other communication vehicle that goes out this week?  I’m also attaching an op-ed I wrote about leadership to illustrate our thinking on the prize.
 
Please let your people know!! See the Attached Announcement.  APPLY YOURSELF.  We’d love to have applicants from your orbit. Please apply at:  https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/clprize/ 

In Warmth, Love and Justice,