Elevate Prize winners announced Tuesday will receive more than $300,000 each in unrestricted funding and support aimed at helping them grow their organizations, including training focused on organizational growth and increasing visibility. The Elevate Prize Foundation said the additional attention is part of the design of the program rather than an afterthought, as it seeks to help nonprofits make their case to the public and decision-makers.
For Mónica Ramírez, the recognition carried personal and political weight tied to the mission of her Fremont, Ohio-based nonprofit Justice for Migrant Women. She said being named one of this year’s 10 Elevate Prize winners meant more than the monetary backing, describing the moment as a sign that her work remains valued despite what she said is an aggressive immigration policy environment. She burst into tears when she learned she had won, then told The Associated Press, “As immigrant and migrant community members are being threatened and attacked around our country, it’s really important to have shows of support like the Elevate Prize is providing because we’ve seen a retraction — a big retraction — in support.”
Ramírez said the award would help her team continue urgently needed advocacy. She said, “The award means we are able to do the work that we know is so urgently needed,” adding that she looks ahead to using the prize to tell the stories of the people she supports through the organization.
Along with unrestricted funding, the Elevate Prize Foundation’s broader package includes support and training on organizational growth and increasing public visibility for both the winners and their groups. The foundation CEO, Carolina Garcia Jayaram, said that increasing visibility can affect more than fundraising and public awareness, describing it as a safeguard for leaders and organizations. She told the Associated Press, visibility “is also a form of protection,” and said, “It’s more important than ever to double down on leaders like Monica.”
To help amplify the winners’ work, Jayaram said the foundation is launching “Good Is Trending.” As part of the initiative, the foundation said it will take over NASDAQ’s Times Square billboards on Tuesday to spotlight the prize winners. The effort reflects how the foundation said it plans to bring the program’s stories to larger audiences beyond traditional nonprofit promotion.
Prizewinner Mara Fleishman, CEO of Chef Ann Foundation, said she expects the wider spotlight to help her group move to the next stage. The Boulder, Colorado-based foundation brings made-from-scratch meals to schools, and Fleishman said, “We’ve worked with over 17,000 schools and reached more than five million kids.” She said her foundation’s challenge is turning that track record into messaging that can be understood by “legislators and advocates,” and she said her group wants that message to carry into school board meetings and statehouses.
Fleishman said she is looking for ways to get the public to become a “force multiplier” for the foundation’s message about school meals that are less dependent on processed foods and that use more fresh local produce. Jayaram, meanwhile, said storytelling is part of how the foundation supports winners, and she linked the selection panel’s decisions to the kinds of stories nominees could tell. She told the Associated Press, “People pay more attention to people than they do to issues,” and added, “So when you can ground an issue in the story of a person, of a community, of a neighborhood, suddenly the whole world can start to engage and relate to that because it’s not that different from a community and a neighborhood and a family somewhere else.”
The Elevate Prize Foundation said it has leaned on storytelling for years, including launching Elevate Studios last year to produce content about its prize winners across platforms that include YouTube videos and feature-length documentaries released in theaters. The foundation named the 2026 class of Elevate Prize winners as Shabana Basij-Rasikh, Hillary Blout, Manu Chopra, Mara Fleishman, Aisha Nyandoro, Tom Osborn, Ai-jen Poo, Mónica Ramírez, Krutika Ravishankar, and Utkarsh Saxena.
In the case of Ramírez, the prize winners’ emphasis on storytelling is tied to her goal of giving prominence to the concerns of migrant and rural women and other marginalized communities. She said, “I really think that the Elevate Prize is going to help us give a microphone to the people that we serve,” concluding, “That’s my hope.”
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