Women Against Abuse just won the 2017 Lipman Family Prize (plus $250K)

Here’s some cool funding news to kick off the new month:

This past Friday, Center City domestic violence nonprofit Women Against Abuse (WAA) was named the winner of the 2017 Lipman Family Prize, the annual global social impact award administered by Wharton.

The honor comes with an unrestricted $250,000, plus the opportunity for WAA’s staff to take executive education courses at Wharton, attend Penn’s Executive Program in Social Impact Strategy and apply for a scholarship for the Nonprofit Leadership program in the School of Social Policy & Practice.

Over 115 organizations applied for this year’s prize. The two runners-up —Boston’s Seeding Labs and Berkeley’s We Care Solar — will receive $50,000 in unrestricted funding and executive training from Penn.

"Winning this prize is recognition of the profound impact of relational violence as a major #publichealth crisis." –@jlisitski #lipman17 pic.twitter.com/MkErBZFLAb

— Women Against Abuse (@WomenAgnstAbuse) April 29, 2017

From our Partners

According to a press release, WAA won “for its role in pioneering Shared Safety, Philadelphia’s coordinated community response to relational violence.”

WAA heads this effort with the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, a department that sits alongside the Department of Human Services (DHS) in the city’s recently formed Health and Human Services Cabinet; in the fall, the city named WAA’s former director of prevention education and technical assistance, Azucena Ugarte, as its first director of domestic abuse strategies within DHS.

It’s encouraging, one, to see a local nonprofit win such a distinguished international prize — despite its home in Wharton, the Lipman Family Prize has never been awarded to a Philly-based organization — and two, to see that nonprofit honored for its collaborative work in solving one of our city’s biggest problems. Cheers to more of that.

The Philadelphia Domestic Violence Hotline number is 1-866-723-3014.