What the social sector can learn from everyday changemakers 

Even as the social sector faces severe cuts that threaten nonprofits’ survival and disrupt the lives of the people they serve, individuals and organizations have been able to apply deep local knowledge and ingenuity to solve urgent challenges.  

For nearly three decades, The Russell Berrie Foundation has honored changemakers in New Jersey—people who spot problems and create grassroots solutions, typically without formal organizational backing. Through a community-driven process, the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Awards (MADA) have recognized more than 440 changemakers whose work frequently challenges conventional philanthropic thinking. Here are some lessons learned from that program. 

Trusting community wisdom to surface everyday changemakers

People outside the philanthropic arena, often at the grassroots level, recognize transformational leaders when they see them; indeed, the right leaders with the right solutions are often those most proximate to the challenges facing their communities. Each year, members of the public nominate hundreds of MADA candidates, and a board of foundation and nonprofit leaders selects individuals whose initiative and problem solving have made a visible difference by meeting critical community needs and expanding opportunities for individuals and families throughout New Jersey. Crucially, while our foundation funds these awards, we deliberately do not choose the winners. 

This requires trusting others’ expertise to identify remarkable problem solvers—some whose work may not align with our institutional priorities. By soliciting nominations from the public and charging a committee of social sector experts with selecting honorees, MADA has consistently surfaced leaders who might never appear on a traditional funder’s radar. Consider Fraidy Reiss, who escaped a forced marriage she entered as a teen and went on to found Unchained at Last. Until 2018, child marriage was legal in every state. Reiss’s organization has helped ban the practice in 16 states while providing survivors with legal, financial, and social support. Fraidy and other grassroots changemakers highlight that meaningful impact can emerge from the margins.   

Taking a leap of faith  

As nonprofit leader Daniel Stid, founding director of the Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. Democracy Program and current director of Lyceum Labs, has observed, “Underwriting early-stage leaders animated by big ideas does not clearly and predictably realize the pre-set outcomes of a philanthropic strategy. But it works!” MADA embodies that leap of faith.  

The qualities that make it worth the risk—humility, tenacity, and intimate local knowledge—are not always apparent in grant applications. When Chip Paillex won in 2010, his organization, America’s Grow a Row, was donating 300,000 pounds of fresh produce to New Jersey food pantries. The MADA recognition catalyzed additional support and national recognition. Today, Grow a Row donates more than four million pounds of produce across 22 states. 

Honoring lived experience and local leadership  

Honorees have tackled entrenched problems by drawing on their lived experience, strong personal relationships, and credibility within their community. When Pino Rodriguez was denied overnight visitation rights with his children because a judge deemed his Camden neighborhood too dangerous, Pino took action. Through the Block Supporter Initiative, he mobilized residents to clear empty lots, plant gardens and window boxes, and maintain sidewalks—efforts that strengthened community ties, deterred drug activity and violence, and reclaimed their streets. MADA’s diverse winners reveal that meaningful change is not limited to familiar definitions of impact or leadership. 

A model others can use 

The MADA approach requires three elements:  

• A strong implementation partner to manage outreach and logistics. MADA’s management team, based at Ramapo College, has worked with the advisory committee to ensure a seamless process, engaged a production company to tell honorees’ stories, developed capacity-building and networking opportunities to amplify the impact of the award, and run the annual ceremony celebrating the honorees.  
• An engaged advisory committee with deep community ties to guide the process. Comprising private, corporate, and community foundation executives, social service agency directors, and local nonprofit leaders, the advisory committee deploys its networks and expertise to drive and vet nominations and choose the award winners.  The vibrancy of New Jersey’s social sector and communities shows in the quality and diversity of MADA’s honoree community.  
• A robust outreach strategy to drive nominations and representation. Ongoing investment in outreach is essential. Specialists in communications strategy, social media marketing, and media relations enable the MADA team to attract nominations, raise the profile of the award and its honorees, and spotlight powerful solutions to community challenges. 

Above all, it requires a willingness to trust community wisdom over institutional preferences.  

Looking Ahead  

Whether you run a national foundation or a neighborhood nonprofit, the lessons we’ve learned from MADA endure: trust your community to surface its visionaries and be ready to back them even before the rest of the world sees their potential. Sometimes the most profound change begins when we take a leap of faith. 

Photo credit: Adena Stevens