Good news for FAS Grantee Appalachian Sustainable Development

The Center for Social Innovation and Amazon.com today announced the ten nonprofit organizations that are finalists for the Amazon.com Nonprofit Innovation Award. By leveraging the power of Amazon.com’s retail platform, the award offers the ten finalists the ability to gain visibility in front of millions of online consumers. Among the finalists is FAS Grantee Appalachian Sustainable Development.

In rural Appalachia, chronic poverty and economic struggle coexist in a region rich in natural resources. Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD) is working to create a new economy for this region-one that is economically vibrant, locally rooted, socially just and ecologically healthy-and to share this emerging model with rural communities around the world.
Two main projects-Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Forestry and Wood Products-employ an integrated, “field-to-table” strategy: markets are accessed to create financial incentives for farmers, loggers, wood manufacturers and others utilizing sustainable practices. In the process, the public is educated about sustainable living, creating markets where none existed. ASD staff and volunteers work with, rather than for, these local entrepreneurs, in everything from research to training to market development and sales.

This award is designed to recognize and reward nonprofits whose innovative approaches and breakthrough solutions most effectively improve their communities or the world at large.

Profiles of each of the ten nonprofit finalist organizations are available at amazon.com/nonprofitinnovation, where customers and visitors can make direct online contributions to their favorite organization(s). Donations will be accepted through September 30, 2005, and the organization with the largest total dollar amount of donations will be awarded the 2005 Amazon.com Nonprofit Innovation Award, along with a matching grant of up to $1 million from Amazon.com.

Amazon.com received almost 1,000 award submissions, and the ten finalists cover a broad spectrum of groups – both large and small — including those that focus on literacy, health care, and developing places for children to play.