2023 Melanie Greenberg U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence
AfP Recognizes NAFCM with the Melanie Greenberg U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence
Washington, D.C. – Today, the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) recognized D.G. Mawn, the President of the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM), with the Melanie Greenberg U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence.
The award, named after and presented by Humanity United’s Managing Director, Peacebuilding, Melanie Greenberg, was established in 2018 to highlight individuals and organizations working to address increasing dynamics of conflict and instability in the United States, signifying the need for and importance of peacebuilding efforts at the community and national level. Greenberg previously served as AfP’s President and CEO.
NAFCM, founded in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, serves as a hub to support community mediators in creating safe spaces for the transformation of conflict to opportunities for engagement, resolution, and partnership with the goal of uniting divided communities. Mawn has served as NAFCM’s President since 2014, guiding NAFCM’s Learning Community and focusing on veterans, law enforcement, immigrants, foster care, the older adult, housing insecurity, formerly incarcerated adults, young adults and community cohesion and security.
As Greenberg said when presenting the award, "I am deeply honored that D.G. Mawn has been chosen as the recipient of the 2023 Melanie Greenberg award. Drawing on NAFCM's roots in the Civil Rights Movement, D.G. has ensured that peace and justice never walk far apart during a time of deep polarization and upheaval in the United States. D.G. has been a brilliant, patient, creative force for change in communities across every region of the country, and has started to build a compelling and inclusive national vision and infrastructure for peace. D.G. embodies all that it means to be a peacebuilder, in the most courageous and visionary senses of the word."
The award was presented on May 5, during the third and final day of AfP’s 2023 PeaceCon conference in Washington, D.C. This occasion also marks the first time that the award has been presented in person since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
About Humanity United
Humanity United is a philanthropic organization dedicated to cultivating the conditions for enduring peace and freedom by supporting partners who are working to advance human dignity and change the systems that enable violent conflict and human exploitation around the world. Together, we strive to foster a more inclusive, free, and peaceful world where all people have an opportunity to flourish.
About Alliance for Peacebuilding
The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), named the “number one influencer and change agent” among peacebuilding institutions worldwide, is an award-winning nonprofit and nonpartisan network of 180+ organizations working in 181 countries to prevent and reduce violent conflict and build sustainable peace. AfP cultivates a network to strengthen and advance the peacebuilding field, enabling peacebuilding organizations to achieve greater impact—tackling issues too large for any one organization to address alone.