Taproot honors business professionals for pro bono services

The more nominations made for these prestigious awards, the better off the entire pro bono community will be. Surely there are many, many under-recognized and appreciated business professionals out there who are deserving of nomination and serious consideration for these honors. It would be great if Taproot were flooded with information identifying and praising these servants of the public good. Pro bono lawyers everywhere applaud the business community and Taproot for what they are doing here.

Taproot Foundation Seeks Nominations For The 2006 Pro Bono Awards Ann Moore, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc., to Keynote Awards Ceremony on April 28th (CSRwire) NEW YORK, NY – The Taproot Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that works to engage the country's millions of business professionals in pro bono service to strengthen the nonprofit sector, today announced that it is accepting nominations for the 2006 Pro Bono Awards. The first annual event will recognize companies across the country who are making an impact in their community by leveraging the skills of their employees.

"The Pro Bono Awards seeks to foster and inspire the expansion of the pro bono ethic far beyond its historic foundation in the legal profession," said Aaron Hurst, president and founder of the Taproot Foundation. "Companies are discovering what law firms and advertising agencies have known for years. At a low cost, pro bono work strategically aligns employee recruitment, retention and professional development with community engagement and corporate philanthropy efforts."

Ann Moore, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc., will keynote the awards ceremony on April 28th at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City. Moore runs the world’s leading magazine company, which publishes 154 titles worldwide including such power brands as Time, People, Sports Illustrated, In Style and Real Simple. She has appeared on Fortune magazine’s list of "The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business" for all seven years of its existence and is a recognized leader in corporate responsibility.

The recipients of the 2006 Pro Bono Awards will be selected by a panel of national leaders in pro bono service and philanthropy. The panel includes Kristin Anderson, senior vice president & director of Community Affairs at Leo Burnett USA, Inc., Kathleen Enright, executive director of Grant Makers for Effective Organizations, Michael Seltzer, executive director of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, Miriam Buhl, pro bono counsel for Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Jenny Shilling Stein, executive director of the Draper Richards Foundation.

Nomination Process The 2006 Pro Bono Awards is open to all companies with the exception of professional services companies (e.g. law firms, ad agencies, consulting firms, etc.) and companies with fewer than 500 employees. Nomination for the 2006 Pro Bono Awards can be submitted online before February 1st at: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB224VHJZLB3A About the Taproot Foundation

The Taproot Foundation is the provider of pro bono services to the nonprofit sector. It works to engage the country’s millions of business professionals in pro bono service, building the infrastructure of organizations we rely on to strengthen and support our communities. Their pro bono model leverages the best practices of leading professional services companies to deliver reliable and quality marketing, human resources and technology services using corporate employees. Since 2002, the Taproot Foundation has recruited over 3,500 business professionals to awarded over $12 million in pro bono services to nonprofits in New York, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, please visit http://www.taprootfoundation.org/.