Glamour award leveraged for Lakota nonprofit

Student Leverages Her Glamour Award MoneyIn April 2012, Glamour Magazine honored Maggie Dunne, a junior at Colgate University majoring in Native American Studies, the Grand Prize for its Top 10 College Women Competition for the work she’s accomplished through her organization, Lakota Pine Ridge Children’s Enrichment Project, Ltd. (LPRCEP), reported the Scarsdale Patch. The nonprofit corporation raises awareness and provides assistance to children, families and schools on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Glamour granted Dunne a $20,000 grand prize, which she donated in its entirety to LPRCEP. In an effort to leverage the prize money for additional funding, she seized an opportunity when Richard Branson visited her liberal arts university in Hamilton, New York.

Dunne sought Branson’s advice on using her Glamour prize money to encourage humanitarian celebrities to donate to her cause. On the spot, Branson agreed to match Glamour’s $20,000 award through his nonprofit Virgin Unite, if a prominent Colgate alumnus, who requested to remain anonymous, donated another $20,000. Now Dunne’s recent donations total $60,000.

“Maggie Dunne’s passion for her work is evident and her success is measurable,” Branson said. “She has made a difference in the lives of thousands of Lakota children and deserves a chance to do more. It is my pleasure to support her work. I am gratified to see that Virgin Unite’s funds, which will be used to help a community of First Americans, also have been matched by an American businessman. The struggles of indigenous communities are global concerns.”Comment:  For more on Native philanthropy, see Navajo Santa and Robinson Speaks for Big Brothers Big Sisters.