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Awards

The Indiana Leadership Association provides two annual awards;
the Marjorie Klinck Award and the Board of Directors' Special
Award

  • The Marjorie Klinck Award recognizes and
    honors outstanding leadership in Indiana communities.
  • The ILA Board of Directors' Special Award
    establishes an award that recognizes accomplishments made in the
    spirit of collaboration.

Read more about the history of the awards and about past winners
below.

The ILA Marjorie Klinck Award

In 1994 the Indiana Leadership Association established The
Marjorie Klinck Award to recognize and honor outstanding leadership
in/for Indiana communities. Marjorie Woodruff Klinck was the
director of Leadership Jackson County from its inception (1983)
until her death (1994). Marjorie inspired and helped found the ILA,
from the very first gathering to discuss how to spread leadership
development throughout the state, to serving as a force on the
charter committee that got ILA off and running.

The Marjorie Klinck Award is open to any individual who has, in
the spirit of the community leadership she exemplified, furthered
the development of community leadership in the state of Indiana.
Anyone may make a nomination for the Award. The call for
nominations is generally made in the spring.

Previous awardees exhibit diverse accomplishments in leadership
development:

1994 JoAnn Lynch, Lilly Endowment, Inc.
- For recognizing the need for statewide leadership
development and for providing the vision and resources for taking
community leadership development to a higher level of
professionalism.
1995 Pat Heiny and Mary Jo Clark, Contemporary Consulting
- For dreaming, researching, designing, and implementing
the Indiana Leadership Initiative (ILI), a multi-year program of
training, programming, and professionalism for boards and staff of
community leadership programs.
1996 Patricia Cressy, Leadership South Bend/Mishawaka
- Whose passion and persistence for community leadership
development sustained the ILA.
1997 Sara Davies, Leadership Evansville - Who
applied the lessons of the Indiana Leadership Initiative in
unexpected places and projects in local and state governance and
judicial administration.
1998 Carmelita Jean, Awareness Washington County -
Whose brand of community leadership coupled vision and action and
transformed the expectations of her community.
2000 Mary Lee Ewald, Vision 2000 - Who saw
opportunities to spread the Indiana Leadership Initiative learnings
virtually everywhere in her community by training “ordinary” people
to be the leaders she knew they could be.
2003 Suzanne Whicker, Leadership Hendricks County -
Who grew a younger community leadership program into a potent
community force.
2004 Rick Coleman, Leadership Gibson County/CLAY -
Who proved that the traditional model of community leadership could
be turned upside down, and who started by integrating youth and
adult programming county-wide.
2007 Ann Windley, Leadership Jackson County - Who
continued and improved a great tradition and inspired the next
generation of leaders to step forward for their community.

The ILA Board of Directors’ Special Award

In 2002, the ILA Board of Directors established an award that
recognizes accomplishments made in the spirit of Collaboration.
Awarded on a periodic basis, usually in the Fall, the award
recognizes a Person, Organization or Project, using the following
award criteria:

“For Practicing & Promoting Collaborative
Leadership In Service To The Communities and People of
Indiana”

Award winners may be members or partners of ILA but this is not
a requirement. Anyone may recommend worthy candidates to the ILA
Board for consideration. There is no official call for nominations
and no official nomination form.

ILA Board of Directors’ Special Award Winners

2002 Indiana Humanities Council
2003 Indiana Rural Development Council
2004 Former Indiana First Lady Judy O’Bannon
2005 Not awarded
2006 Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman and R.I.S.E. 2020
2007 Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center/Greater Indy
Neighborhoods Initiative