Nonprofit of the Year

Nonprofit of the Year Award recognizes a nonprofit organization in Northeast Pennsylvania that promotes and demonstrates excellence in leadership, management, innovation, collaboration, and impact.

2025 Nonprofit of the Year Nominees must meet ALL of the following criteria:

• Must be an active 501(c)(3) organization operating within the NEPA counties of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Wayne, Carbon, Pike, Susquehanna, Bradford, Sullivan, Wyoming.
  
  
• Staff and board demonstrates strong leadership and management practices through clear vision for future growth.
  
  
• Demonstrates innovation and cooperation through problem solving, effective programs, and collaboration with other organizations.
  
  
• Shows community impact by demonstrating positive change as a result of the organization’s work.

A $500 unrestricted grant will be issued to the Nonprofit of the Year from the Scranton Area Community Foundation’s Capacity Building Fund.

Collaborative Project of the Year

The purpose of the award is to celebrate successes, share best practices, and to acknowledge the collaborative efforts of organizations who achieve extraordinary results as a result of their partnerships.

In order to be eligible for this award, nominees must have successfully worked together on a project with a mix of organizations and individuals  for instance, local entrepreneurs, governments, funders, the private sector, academics, etc. A successful collaboration could mean they’ve overcome particular obstacles, used technology creatively, or found new ways to work together. They may have had to compromise or take calculated risks with new collaborations that hadn’t been tried before. This is the time to shine the light on the necessity of and the successes had in collaboration.

2025 Collaborative Project of the Year Nominees must meet ALL of the following criteria:

• A minimum of 50% of the project partners must be active 501(c)(3) organizations operating within the NEPA counties of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Wayne, Carbon, Pike, Susquehanna, Bradford.
  
  
• The collaborative project has to be supporting the NEPA community.

A $500 unrestricted grant will be issued to each organization (up to 5 organizations) involved in the winning Collaborative Project of the Year from the Scranton Area Community Foundation’s Capacity Building Fund. Please note, grant funds can only be issued to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. All partners of the winning project will be recognized, with funds being issued to eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

Rising Star Award

The Rising Star Award recognizes an individual who is an up-and-comer in the NEPA nonprofit sector. This individual can be new to the nonprofit sector, new to nonprofit management, new to their nonprofit organization, a new board member for this organization, or new volunteer. This individual should demonstrate an ability to go above and beyond for their organization, able to rise to meet challenges, and to motivate and inspire others to do the same. There is no age limit or title requirement for this award. In this case, “new” is defined as within the last five (5) years.

A $500 unrestricted grant from the Scranton Area Community Foundation’s Capacity Building Fund will be awarded to the organization that nominated the winner of the Rising Star Award. Please note, grant funds can only be issued to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

If the nominating organization of the Rising Star Award recipient is not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, they can designate a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in NEPA to receive the grant funds. In addition, the recipient of the Rising Star Award will receive professional development via a complimentary enrollment in their choice of one of the SACF pre approved eCornell certificate programs (a $3900 value).