The Award-Winning Catherine Jones

Yesterday, Catherine Jones, CPR's Operations and Finance Manager, received Public Citizen's 11^th annual Phyllis McCarthy Public Service Award, in recognition of her contributions to the organization and the nonprofit community.

Catherine's been with CPR for eight of our eleven years, and she's been a lynchpin of the organization for most of that time. CPR began small — first as an idea shared by a group of scholars around a restaurant table — then morphed into a somewhat more formal gathering of scholars, and then over the course of a few years grew out of its "garage band" phase into the full-fledged organization that's now making a real difference.

Anyone who's ever built an organization of any type — a nonprofit, a small business, a theater company, you name it — will recognize the challenges inherent in organizational evolution of that sort. Catherine made — and makes — it possible. She figured out how to navigate the challenges of tax filings and unemployment, she built the scaffolding for our fundraising efforts, she devised ways for us to function as the virtual organization that we are with staffers scattered across the region and scholars across the nation.

As CPR Executive Director Jake Caldwell said in nominating her for the award, "Catherine handles every such task with an incredible amount of good humor, patience and persistence, giving our virtual group a strong sense of cohesiveness and structure…. Catherine is the foundation that enables all of us to work at our full capacity at CPR. She truly amplifies our effectiveness and voice with her talents and support. And because she shares our values, we also benefit from her enthusiasm and sense of purpose."

The award is named for Phyllis McCarthy, a 24-year employee of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, who passed away in November 2002. She worked for 24 years as a managing editor and office manager, playing an integral part in the development and preparation of publications, reports, medical journal articles and petitions to government agencies. The award recognizes individuals who have worked long and hard for a public interest group, performing critical functions as did McCarthy, but who have not received public credit commensurate with their contributions.

Catherine said in her remarks accepting the award that "service to a worthy cause is its own reward." She's exactly right about that, of course, and she brings to the task a palpable sense of joy and fulfillment that makes everyone else's job more fulfilling, too.

We're all incredibly proud of her and grateful to Public Citizen for recognizing her outstanding work.