AFP Brandywine Chapter Announces Annual Philanthropy Day Winners

Wilmington, Delaware October 22, 2011 -- Brandywine Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Philanthropy Day Awards: Sonia Schorr Sloan, Jane Wilkie, Barclay’s Bank and Matthew Ryan McNeill. The winners will be honored on Wednesday, November 16th during the Chapter’s annual Philanthropy Day activities being held at Deerfield Golf and Tennis Club.

Sonia Schorr Sloan of Brandywine Hundred is receiving the Professional Life-Time Achievement Award for decades of service to numerous organizations. Sonia was instrumental in the founding of a number of Delaware nonprofit, including the ACLU of Delaware, Public Allies Delaware, the Delaware Financial Literacy Institute, and the Agenda for Delaware Women. In addition to her long career as a fundraiser, she has provided both consulting and pro bono services, and served on numerous boards, raising millions of dollars for a variety of important causes. Sonia raised over $80 million dollars in capital campaigns alone for organizations such as Planned Parenthood of Delaware, for which she served as President and YWCA Delaware. She currently serves on the board of the Biden Breast Health Initiative, is President of the Board of the William T. and Mary McLaughlin Fund and is a member of the Strategic Development Committee of the Fraunhofer Center for Molecular Biotechnology. A past president of the AFP Brandywine Chapter, Sonia was named Fundraising Executive of the Year in 1992 and currently serves on the Chapter’s Advisory Board.

Volunteer Award recipient Jane Wilkie is being honored for her work as a community-wide volunteer, fundraiser and friend-raiser. Upon her retirement from Delaware Technical and Community College as a Language and Cultural Instructor in 2007, Jane established an endowed scholarship to allow international students of limited resources to attend school full-time. The scholarship has provided tuition, books and fees for as many as three students per semester. At Friendship House, Jane regularly brings home-cooked meals and offers friendship and encouragement to the women who are working to rebuild their lives. She recruited 30 new Fund for Women Founders, persuading each to pledge $1,000 to the group’s endowment fund. She is responsible for helping Survivors of Abuse in Recovery (SOAR) double its size and budget through her leadership on the event planning committee and, for the past three years, Jane has been an active ambassador for YWCA Delaware, introducing people to the organization and hosting a table at the annual fundraising breakfast.

The 2011 Philanthropy Award goes to Barclays Bank. Barclays is being recognized not only for its financial commitment to the nonprofit community but for also providing thousands of volunteer hours and encouraging employees to hold fundraising competitions benefitting area agencies. Under Barclays’ Spaces for Sports program their gift of half a million dollars to Eastside Charter School helped transform a broken-down playground lot to a safe, state-of-the-art, playground, making it one of only two Spaces for Sports facilities outside of the United Kingdom. In one year, Barclays employees contributed 36,000 volunteer hours to various agencies, collected over 13 tons of food for the Food Bank of Delaware and raised over one million dollars through fundraising events and Barclays’ matched gifts program for organizations which include Eastside Charter School, West End Neighborhood House, The Easter Seals Society, YWCA Delaware and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
This year’s Youth in Philanthropy Award is going to Matthew Ryan McNeill of Wilmington for his work with Success Won’t Wait, an organization, founded in 2002 to encourage reading, particularly among young children. For the past nine years, Matt has cleaned and sorted tens of thousands of donated books. His efforts resulted in dozens of successful local book drives, collecting and distributing over 250,000 books throughout the community. In 2010 this Archmere Academy sophomore sorted and stamped 2,500 books for the Delaware Division of Libraries Summer Reading program, which thanks to Success Won’t Wait was able to provide a new book to each child who participated in the program.

Philanthropy Day is celebrated each year to recognize and honor the rich contributions made philanthropy and volunteerism in our community. The day-long event includes an awards luncheon, as well as educational seminars. For more information, call 302-778-1595 or go to http://afpbrandywine.afpnet.org. The Brandywine Chapter of AFP’s Philanthropy Day is made possible in part by contributions from DuPont, Chase, Delaware Community Foundation, Delaware Today, Bank of America, PNC and WSFS Bank.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) represents over 31,000 fundraisers in 225 chapters throughout the world, working to advance philanthropy through advocacy, research, education and certification programs. The AFP DE, Brandywine Chapter represents over 160 charitable fundraisers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey.

For more information, please contact: Michèle LeFever Quinn 302.831.0840 mlquinn at udel dot edu.