May 24, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Athan Lindsay has been awarded the Association of Black Foundation Executives 2006 Emerging Leader in Philanthropy Award. The ABFE Emerging Leader in Philanthropy Award is presented during the ABFE James Joseph Lecture in Philanthropy held each year at the Council on Foundations Annual Meeting.  The award recognizes and encourages the accomplishments and contributions of staff, donors and trustees in the philanthropic sector who are under the age of 40. The award honors an outstanding individual whose innovative leadership promotes philanthropy as a means of social change in Black Communities and advances ABFE’s mission to promote effective and responsive philanthropy in Black communities.

ABFE holds the distinction of being the first and oldest of more than 40 Council on Foundations (COF) affinity groups. Since its founding, the organization has grown into an autonomous membership organization and affinity group of the COF that counts among its members the most influential staff, trustees and individual donors of grantmaking organizations.

Mr. Lindsay is an Associate Director with the National Rural Funders Collaborative, a philanthropic initiative designed to address persistent rural poverty and increase and leverage long-term community investments in rural America. Mr. Lindsay has an extensive career in the field of philanthropy that has included serving as a program officer for the Warner Foundation and the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation based in North Carolina. Mr. Lindsay is a founding member of the Next Generation of African American Philanthropists (NGAAP), a giving circle based in the Raleigh-Durham, NC region that serves as a philanthropic vehicle for African-Americans to collectively give of their time, talent, and treasure to address complex community problems.  Athan has also created the Lindsay Legacy Fund, a charitable fund in which he and his family practice their philanthropy and “contribute their reasonable service” to efforts that work towards social change that improves the general welfare, economic and educational opportunities for individuals and communities.
  
Mr. Lindsay, currently resides in Durham, NC and is a native of Winston-Salem, NC, and a graduate of  Davidson College with a B.A. in History ‘93.