Neighbor to Family Leader Named Purpose Prize Winner

Gordon Johnson, president and CEO of Alliance member Neighbor to Family, has been honored as a 2007 Purpose Prize winner of $100,000. Civic Ventures awards the Purpose Prize, the nation’s only large-scale award for those in the second half of life working on critical social issues.

"Winners of the Purpose Prize are inspired innovators who have turned their experience and passion into new ventures that meet difficult societal challenges. But they are much more than that," said Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, co-founder of the Purpose Prize and author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. "They provide encouraging signs of what's to come as baby boomers leave their midlife careers and enter a new stage of work and contribution."

Johnson wanted to help fix a problem. During his seven years heading the Illinois Department of Family and Children, he saw that siblings were separated from each other far too often. His organization, Neighbor to Family, aims to keep siblings together and teach parents the skills they need to get their children back.

Read more about Johnson’s lifelong commitment to care for abused and neglected children here. Johnson was presented with the Samuel Gerson Nordlinger Child Welfare Leadership Award at the 2006 Alliance for Children and Families National Conference. The award recognizes individuals for their contributions to the effectiveness of the Alliance, the field of child welfare, and the national public policy process in advancing the cause of quality of services for children and families. Learn more in this Alliance for Children and Families Magazine article.

Learn more about Neighbor to Family at www.neighbortofamily.org  or Civic Ventures at www.CivicVentures.org.

 

(c) Alliance for Children and Families: www.alliance1.org