Posted on November 11, 2009

Mott President Wins First European Foundation Centre Philanthropy Compass Prize

The European Foundation Centre has awarded its first-ever Philanthropy Compass Prize to William S. White, chairman, president, and CEO of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan.

The prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of the EFC and the European philanthropic sector as a whole and will be awarded to individuals, like White, who helped break the mold of European philanthropy through their relationships with EFC and its peers. The prize will not be awarded annually but rather as special circumstances warrant. The inaugural prize was awarded in conjunction with EFC's twentieth anniversary.

White, who has worked for the Mott Foundation for the past forty years, became its president in 1976 and its chairman in 1988. Throughout his tenure, the foundation has contributed greatly to civil society development in Central and Eastern Europe. During the award ceremony, he was praised for his leadership during the early years of the EFC, a time of great change and upheaval in Europe.

"We realized that when the [Berlin] Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, there was an historic opportunity," White said. "In the States, we never thought this would happen — this was an opportunity that had to be seized."