3RD ANNUAL

NEW YORK CITY IMAGINE AWARDS

4TH ANNUAL DETAILS COMING SOON!

THE 3rd ANNUAL EVENT DETAILS

Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Guastavino’s
409 East 59th St., New York, NY 10022
6pm – 10pm
Tickets $300 | Nonprofit $150 | Virtual $25

WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

4TH APPLICATIONS OPEN JAN 16, 2024!

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The 3rd Annual New York City Imagine Awards, the premier event that shines the spotlight on the nonprofit sector, was held on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at Guastavino’s. This gala event was created to offer formal acknowledgment to some of the City’s most effective and innovative nonprofit organizations. 501(c)(3) nonprofits located in and/or significantly serving The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens or Staten Island were eligible to apply across six categories: *NEW* DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and/or Accessibility); Arts & Culture; Innovation; Leadership Excellence; Rising Star; & Social Impact, with the winner in each category winning a $5,000 grant. In addition, the 24 finalists, 4 in each category, each received a professionally produced video, which was showcased the night of the event, and thanks to Webster Bank's Diamond Sponsorship finalists were awarded with $1,000 as well.

MEET OUR 3RD ANNUAL EMCEE, WHO RETURNED FROM LAST YEAR!

Sonia Rincón

General Assignment Reporter
Sonia Rincón is a general assignment reporter for WABC-TV. Raised in four out of five boroughs of the city (all but Queens!), Sonia is thrilled to tell New York’s day-to day stories, documenting its changes, challenges, cultural richness and resiliency.

If her name sounds familiar, you may have heard her voice on New York’s all-news radio station 1010 WINS, where she spent 15 years as an anchor and reporter while freelance reporting for New York-area television stations, before joining the Eyewitness News team full-time in May 2022.

Her broadcast journalism career began at Emerson College in Boston, where she served as news director for college radio station WERS-FM. Before returning home to New York, Sonia reported and anchored news for radio stations in Connecticut, Maine, Virginia and Pennsylvania including KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia.

Sonia earned numerous awards in her 20+ year radio career, including an Edward R. Murrow award for storm coverage of Ida in 2021.

She also has served as an adjunct lecturer at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Sonia has Colombian and Scottish heritage and is fluent in Spanish. When she’s not working, Sonia enjoys theater and live music, fitness classes and cooking. She lives in the Bronx, is a die-hard Yankees fan and a proud alumna of LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.

The Imagine Awards is an award program that
was designed for 3 reasons:

 

1

To shine a spotlight on those nonprofits that are truly unique those with strong leadership, who are innovative in their actions and operations, who are impactful on both a micro and macro perspective, who are significantly advancing programs and the sector on a regular basis, who think out of the box, and who understand the need to effectively collaborate to leverage results.

2

To foster relationships having the ability for nonprofit leadership to come together and communicate, to see what each other are doing, to share ideas, and to find ways to effectively work and collaborate with each other creates a more integrated and stronger sector for all of us.

3

To provide education it’s a little bit of a cliché, but we don’t know what we don’t know. Nonprofit leadership is often focused on the day to day needs of their organization and don’t always have a place to turn or an avenue to bounce questions off of. The Imagine Awards offers this through idea sharing, access to winners (Let’s Imagine Event), and more.

The Imagine Awards not only provides a $5,000 check to the winner in each category, it provides a professionally developed video to each finalist, it provides an avenue to collaborate and explore, it provides exposure and recognition to the finalists and the sector, and it provides a night where the light is shine in on the sector to spotlight all the amazing things that are happening in the nonprofit community. Imagine Awards participants have developed new partnerships and collaborations, have made corporate connections which has resulted in new board members and contributions, have gain strategic insight into what other organizations are doing, and have developed new friendships and relationships that have proven essential in the growth and development of their organizations.

AWARD CATEGORIES

Rising Star NYC Imagine Award
Aetna Rising Star Award
This award will recognize a nonprofit generating under $5 million in revenue for its outstanding innovation, impact, and achievements in meeting its mission. The award will be given to an organization who demonstrates an outstanding record of sustained achievement, has successfully demonstrated successful financial performance, and has built a reputation for excellence within the community.
NYC Imagine Leadership Excellence Award Photo
Alliant Insurance Services, Inc. Leadership Excellence Award

This award recognizes an exemplary nonprofit leader (who may be an Executive Director, board member, staff member, volunteer, etc.) whose accomplishments have advanced his/her organization. The leader must work in and reside in any of the 5 New York City boroughs. This is not about traditional volunteering, directors, or funding, but focuses on innovation in driving organizational change and social impact.

NYC Imagine Social Impact Award Image
Cerini & Associates Social Impact Award
This award will be given to a nonprofit that measures success not just by meeting its mission, but by affecting the surrounding community. Impact goes beyond the number of children served, shelters provided, and mouths fed. Impact looks at how the organization impacted the New York City community as a whole, and how the results have been measured.
NYC Arts & Culture Award Image
Claire Friedlander Family Foundation Arts & Culture Award
This award is available to any arts and/or cultural organization that has had a significant impact in New York City. This includes organizations that have had a significant, measurable impact on their community, developed new and/or innovative programming, developed effective fee-generating programs, or have demonstrated outstanding achievement in their artistic and/or cultural field.
NYC Imagine Innovation Award Photo
*NEW* JPMorgan Chase DEIA Award

This award recognizes an organization for prioritizing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and/or Accessibility within its mission OR within its programming to deepen and expand its DEIA impact and to strive to build DEIA into program design and delivery, staff recruitment and engagement, volunteerism, and donor engagement. The organization needs to show that DEIA is a primary focus and how the organization is effectively addressing DEIA issues through its programming and its organizational culture (from the top down).

NYC Imagine Innovation Award Photo
Fan Favorite Award
Each finalist is automatically entered into the voting pool to win the $3,000 Fan Favorite Award. Voting typically runs for 3 weeks in August/September. The public can vote daily via social media and each finalist is encouraged to share the link. The finalist with the most votes is declared the “Fan Favorite” and is announced LIVE at the event.
NYC Imagine Innovation Award Photo
Innovation Award
This nonprofit has been innovative in adopting new platforms that have led to a significant increase in the organization’s ability to meet its mission. This could include the implementation of technology that enables the organization to achieve cost savings and better communication; a strategic approach to fundraising; a unique and effective public relations campaign; etc.

Sponsorship Information

4TH ANNUAL SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION COMING SOON!

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