On 20 July, the first anniversary of Olga Alexeeva’s death, the trustees of Philanthropy Bridge Foundation and Alliance magazine, together with a working group formed at a meeting in London in January,[1] announced a philanthropy prize in Olga’s name.

The Olga Alexeeva Memorial Prize of £5,000 will be awarded to an individual who has demonstrated remarkable leadership, creativity and results in developing philanthropy for progressive social change in an emerging market country or countries. The prize will be for the individual winner to use at their discretion.

The news of Olga Alexeeva’s sudden death just over a year ago, on 20 July 2011, came as a terrible shock to her friends and colleagues around the world. Olga was only 42. She had recently left Charities Aid Foundation to set up the Philanthropy Bridge Foundation, whose goal was to build meaningful connections, partnerships and, most importantly, trust between philanthropists looking to give and individuals and institutions looking to ‘do’ in developing and emerging market countries around the world. Underpinning this was Olga’s unswerving belief that philanthropy should and could be about making the world a better and fairer place and that the best solutions invariably emerge when initiative and inspiration emerge out of the local context rather than being imported from outside. This prize is in honour of her memory and beliefs.

The nomination process will open in early September, and profiles of the shortlisted finalists will appear in a special edition of Alliance magazine on emerging markets philanthropy to be published in March 2013. The selection of the prize winner will be conducted with input from a public online vote and the final decision will be made by a panel of judges.

1 This working group was formed at the ‘Building Bridges: Developing Philanthropy in Emerging Markets’ meeting held in London in January 2012 (see report in the March 2012 issue of Alliance).

For more information
Details about eligibility criteria for the prize and a nomination form are available on the Alliance website at http://www.alliancemagazine.org/en/content/olga-alexeeva-memorial-prize