Gulf Coast Consortia finalist for Lodestar prize

CONTACT: Mike Williams
PHONE: 713-348-6728
EMAIL: mikewilliams@rice.edu  

Gulf Coast Consortia finalist for Lodestar prize
Bioscience organization includes six Texas Medical Center institutions

The Gulf Coast Consortia (GCC) is a finalist for the 2011 Collaboration Prize created by The Lodestar Foundation, an organization dedicated to maximizing the growth and impact of philanthropy. 

GCC, based at Rice University’s BioScience Research Collaborative, is one of eight finalists to receive $12,500 for creating an extraordinarily impactful and innovative collaboration. A grand prizewinner to be named in April will be awarded an additional $150,000.

This is the second installment of the Collaboration Prize, a national award designed to identify and showcase models of collaboration among nonprofit organizations.

“To be recognized as one of the most successful collaborations in The 2011 Collaboration Prize is an honor. We hope that other nonprofit organizations will be inspired to work together as a way to be successful and contribute to the growth and development of their communities,” said Kathleen Matthews, Rice University’s Stewart Memorial Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and chair of the GCC Oversight Committee.

“Selected from more than 800 applications, the finalists are each a superb model of how nonprofits, by pooling knowledge, resources and talent, can serve their communities more efficiently and with greater impact,” said Jerry Hirsch, chairman of The Lodestar Foundation.

About Gulf Coast Consortia

Formed in 2001, GCC is a collaborative alliance for cross-institutional, interdisciplinary bioscience training and research composed of Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, the University of Houston, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. GCC brings together the strengths of its member institutions to build interdisciplinary collaborative research teams and training programs in the biological sciences at their intersection with the quantitative sciences. About 500 faculty and 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the above institutions participate in GCC programs. GCC’s mission is to train the next generation of scientists, to enable scientists at all levels to ask and answer questions that cross disciplines, to address the challenging biological and biomedical issues of the 21st century and, ultimately, to apply the resulting expertise and knowledge to the prevention and treatment of disease.

About the 2011 Collaboration Prize

The collaboration must have involved two or more nonprofit organizations. Each collaboration was judged on the extent to which it demonstrated improved effectiveness in achieving social good; more effectively used human and financial resources; represented an innovative response to a specific challenge or opportunity; and exhibited characteristics that would demonstrate that the collaboration is a model for the field, sector or community.

Out of the eight finalists, the selection panel – a group chaired by Sterling Speirn, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and comprised of elite philanthropists and leaders of major philanthropic foundations – will choose one grand prizewinner, to be announced in New York City on April 8.

The success stories of the finalists, along with other submissions, will be added to the Nonprofit Collaboration Database, an interactive resource comprised of real-life examples of exceptional collaboration. The database is housed on the website of the Foundation Center, a national nonprofit service organization that connects nonprofits and grantmakers to tools, resources and information. 

The Lodestar Foundation

The Lodestar Foundation, is a grantmaking organization that provides funds nationally and internationally to organizations that support its mission, created the Collaboration Prize in 2009 to identify achievements in collaboration as models for inspiration and replication. True to the spirit of collaboration, the foundation has partnered with AIM Alliance, the Foundation Center, La Piana Consulting and other foundation and nonprofit leaders to support the 2011 prize.