This award is presented annually to a community service and/or social justice organization working in the city in which the ESS meets during the particular year each award is given. The 2026 ESS meeting will be held in Washington, DC. To be eligible for consideration, the organization must be working to address a significant social problem, empower marginalized communities, advance community involvement and social-political participation in underrepresented communities, and/or effect positive change in the neighborhood/city/state in which they conduct their work. The organization should be located in the Washington Metropolitan area (the DMV). This award comes with a $750 stipend and the possibility to engage in a conversation with scholars on a panel during the ESS annual meeting at which the award is given.

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To nominate an organization for this award, please send a letter (or letters) of nomination detailing how the group fulfills the above qualifications to the Committee Chair, Brian Levy, by October 15. Please include examples of the nominated organization’s work, copies of (or references to) any relevant published materials and/or press coverage and contact information for both nominator and the organization. 

 

​​The 2025 award recipient is Center for Cooperative Development and Solidarity (CCDS). CCDS provides educational, technical, financial, human, intellectual and organizational support to groups of people in and around East Boston, mostly low- income immigrants, to explore the creation of worker owned cooperatives as an economic and social alternative. Through their work, CCDS is contributing to the social, economic and racial equity of the Boston community, generating decent wages, prosperous lives thus helping to forward the local and the global solidarity economy and cooperativism movement.

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