Cynthia Clay Briggs Receives 2009 Dorothy F.Caram Commitment to Leadership Award

Our beloved leader, Cynthia Clay Briggs, is the recipient of Project Blueprint’s 2009 Dorothy F. Caram Commitment to Leadership Award. The award recognizes an outstanding member of the multicultural community whose efforts help to increase diversity in leadership. The recipient is selected on the basis of overall contributions and achievements.*

The United Way established Project Blueprint to recruit, train and place ethnically diverse professionals on nonprofit boards and in other volunteer leadership positions. The Project Blueprint mission is to ensure that participants working in Houston’s nonprofit sector reflect the city’s richly diverse community.

Everyone involved with Houston-area students knows of Cynthia Clay Griggs and her dedicated mission to keep kids-at-risk in school. But some may not know her commitment to developing leaders within the CIS organization from the top down. Throughout her tenure as Executive Director, Ms Briggs has endeavored to hire, recruit and retain an ethnically diverse group of employees, volunteers and corporate partners. These efforts are just one of the many ways CIS- Houston has become, under her leadership, a model for non-profits in Texas and nationwide.

Not only does Ms. Briggs exemplify Project Blueprint’s mission to “be the change you want to see in the world”, she continually empowers and inspires others to do the same.

This honor is especially timely, as Ms. Briggs and CIS Houston celebrate 30 years of service this year.

Congratulations, Cynthia!



Past Recipients of the Dorothy F. Caram Commitment to Leadership Award:

Norma R. Benzon, Ph.D.
Ana Calvo
Erwin Chew (posthumous)
Roland Garcia
Alberto Gonzales
Anne F. Grizzle
Anna James
Marcello Marini
Bobby Moon
Julia Nelson
Norma Olvera, Ph.D.
Shawn Emerson Simmons, Ph.D.
Baldwin Tom
Norma Williams



Click here to see Raise Your Hands Texas' tribute to CIS Houston, featuring Cynthia Clay Briggs.



*Quoted from http://www.unitedwayhouston.org/leadership/pblueprint.html