Amy Sacks,
The Pixie Project

When Amy Sacks turned her lifelong passion for animals into a career in 2006, she named her new nonprofit after her parents' dog, Pixie, a rescue animal she insisted they keep.

The Pixie Project, which Sacks, 26, has directed ever since, is part animal adoption center, part pet supply store. She intends for it to become self-sustaining through the sale of pet supplies - a business model she hopes will be copied in other cities. Her adoption center does not take owner surrenders or strays but instead functions as a support system for existing shelters that struggle with overpopulation. Sacks wants to get the message out to future pet owners: "I want to get into schools and educate kids about why we spay and neuter, why we adopt," she says.

"In an ideal world, if we had the money, I'd have the staff to staff my store [so] I could be out in the community pushing these agendas and progressing our cause," Sacks adds. "But the reality is, with four staff members and a store that's open six days a week and staffed seven days a week for care, we're a little bit limited." Even with limited resources, Pixie Project has placed more than 1,000 animals in homes in the past two years, and Sacks says the Project does such careful matching of pets and owners only a handful have come back. "Our return rate is minute compared to a traditional sheltered say it's less than 1 percent," she says. Directing this effort is a 24/7 job, and the idea of a "normal" 9-to-5 work day, Sacks admits, "is at this point completely foreign to me."

Sacks often compares the Pixie Project to more traditional shelters hidden on the outskirts of cities across the country. She admits the scenes in them are often gruesome: dogs hit by cars, families crying as they're forced to give up their pets. The city would rather pretend the problem doesn't exist. "It's the reality, but no one wants to look at it. It's not part of a fun-filled day," she says.

As for Pixie Project, Sacks is hoping a crafty combination of friendly faces and a chance to play with the dogs in their open shelter or to sit in a room surrounded by cats will entice people to adopt.

So far, it appears to be working.

- Megan Brescini

Brandi Tuck,
Goose Hollow Family Shelter

Brandi Tuck found her passion for working with homeless families while at school in Florida. After moving to Portland, she began volunteering at Goose Hollow Family Shelter, an emergency facility where parents and children can find meals, beds and advocates who will work to find them permanent homes, while also working at the Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force on anti-hunger policy. Two years into volunteering, Tuck was hired as the executive director of Goose Hollow. She was 24. And though she's proud of being the head of an organization that's making noticeable changes in her community, the now-26-year-old still feels like she's sacrificed the respect of loved ones who view money as an indicator of success.

More to the point, she's got more than enough to keep her mind occupied. "I have about 17 to-do lists at any given time. I try to do a little bit of fundraising every day, whether it's writing grants, or working on appeal letters, or working with the donor base. Three to four nights a week I try to stay at the shelter and have dinner with the families."

And then there is the business side of things. "While families stay at Goose Hollow, they work with case managers to help them find permanent housing," Tuck says. "Last year 71 percent were able to find permanent housing before leaving the shelter."

Over two years, she has expanded Goose Hollow's services to seven months out of the year, with the help of a legion of volunteers. Last year Goose Hollow applied for - and was granted nonprofit status, more than 10 years after its doors first opened to families in need.

While its capacity to help has grown, Tuck says the need for the service has grown as well: "The average length of a stay last year was 31 days. The average length of a stay the year before that was 17 days, which I think just shows the signs of the economy."

Tuck's next project is Goose Hollow's first day shelter, which opened a little over a week ago. The hope is it will take some of the pressure off families as they work toward obtaining affordable housing. It represents a large step for Tuck toward reaching her ultimate goal: "The one thing that I really want more than anything is for us to be open year-round. There's a huge need - something like 850 homeless families on any given night in Portland - but there's only space in shelters for 68. During the summer, there's only 35. I'd love to stay open year-round, but it's purely funding."

- Megan Brescini

Fowzia Abdulle,
Healing Roots

Fowzia Abdulle knows all about trauma. She's been working for three years as an advocate and case manager with Healing Roots, the Bradley Angle House's culturally specific response to domestic violence. The center, which opened in 2007, seeks to provide emergency shelter and affordable, long-term housing to African and African-American women in need.

Abdulle's work puts her in the path of many women and children dealing with trauma. She is often the first person a survivor of domestic abuse sees on arrival at Healing Roots. And Abdulle has the added challenge of empowering women who were raised in cultures that discourage the slightest discussion of abuse.

"Some women don't know how to talk about domestic violence," says Abdulle, 35. "It's hard for them to open up. For African-Americans, it's easy, they can talk about it. African women, they don't at all." It's a situation Abdulle, a Somalian refugee who came to America in 2002, understands personally. Her experience gives women in her care reason to trust her.

"Coming from a war country, I have seen many people, especially women and children, who suffered either because of rape, hunger or being killed. I felt like this was my time to help them, by providing advocacy for those women and children who are in abusive relationships and be their voices when others can't hear them," she says. Abdulle's fundamental task is to keep her clients safe. The emergency shelter on site can hold up to seven women; if it's full, victims are offered hotel vouchers. Even if a bed is available, however, the cultural divide often makes it impossible for women to feel comfortable in the shelter.

Despite these challenges, Abdulle is determined to help each woman reach goals she couldn't imagine before coming in for help. At the same time she's been going to school to obtain a social-work degree. (She already has one in computer information systems.) And she is learning more Arabic. Abdulle already speaks Swahili, Somali and English - which could all come in handy for her big plan. "My personal goal is to provide social work served on an international level," she says, "and help women and children who are in refugee camps and war zones, so I can empower them and give back to my community."

- Megan Brescini

Jennifer Gilmore,
Child Centered Solutions

Jennifer Gilmore could have gone for the big bucks. After a semester at Lewis & Clark in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she graduated at the top of her class from Tulane Law School in New Orleans. There were plenty of options for this promising young lawyer, many of them much more remunerative, but she chose to work for Child Centered Solutions, a nonprofit organization that represents children in divorce proceedings. Helping kids was what she wanted to do, and the lack of a high wage couldn't change her mind. "Whatever chromosome there is for making a lot of money," Gilmore says, "I don't have it. I've worked in nonprofits my entire career. One of the things I love about working nonprofit is that you're doing a job that you love, that engages you, that captivates you. If it didn't, you wouldn't work for the salary."

Gilmore's services as a lawyer don't cost her young clients or their parents a dime; at the same time, her representation is about as good as her clients could get at any price. "My role in court is not just a struggle to control parents," Gilmore says. "The population we work with is pretty much the toughest custody cases that are going in front of courts. Unfortunately, these also happen to be the lowest-income families. They have no access to any kinds of services. In addition to high conflict between parents, there's domestic violence, parental substance abuse, mental illness - all of these issues that put the child at risk."

Which is why Gilmore took the gig. Her deepest concern is that during the domestic-relations process, the parents tend to fill up the room. Parents see through their own lens, their own hurt.

"We support kids," says Gilmore. "We give them an outlet during the case, some control over situation that turns life upside down - the idea is that children's attorneys are important because kids' views and needs and concerns are important."

- Megan Brescini

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THE SKIDMORE PRIZE is made possible by a generous grant from Momentum Market Intelligence.

The Runners-Up
Getting Serious about Circus life and avoiding "Founders Syndrome"

Jenn Cohen,
Circus Project

Jenn Cohen started the Circus Project in 2007, and it's been a one-woman show ever since.

Cohen is also a therapist with a master's degree in process-oriented therapy. "I had been circus artist for many years," she says, "and I thought that at-risk and homeless youth had some amazing stories to tell. So, I thought that artistically it would be a great opportunity for the world, for Portland, to hear their stories through the arts."

All it takes is one good idea to get something off the ground, and in Cohen's case, it's sent kids flying through the air on trapezes.

"Why circus? There is something for everybody," Cohen explains. "Whether you're a clown, or you're graceful, or not graceful, or you're strong, or a comedian - for whatever type of personality that comes in and wants to express itself, there is a role in the circus."

While circus has clowning, it's not all goofing around. Teaching such demanding skills to this population comes with serious challenges. Some of the kids Cohen teaches drop in off the street; others arrive by referral. "A lot of these kids don't have a huge attention span, and they haven't grasped onto more traditional forms of theater and arts," says Cohen. "But the degree of risk in circus really catches them and brings their attentiveness to the program."

"The nature of circus is very physical. I had [an experience] in the beginning where I was spotting kids, and they would keep falling. They had the strength to do the moves. So I had a meeting with them and asked, "What's going on?" And they said, "We just wanted to be held. We knew you'd catch us."

Cary Clarke,
PDX Pop Now!

For Cary Clarke, a bittersweet moment has come. He is leaving the board of an organization that he helped create - PDX Pop Now!, which under his tutelage and hard work has grown into an icon of the local music scene.

"Everyone who's built a nonprofit will tell you, be careful of "founder's syndrome,"" he says. "It's a big danger that nonprofits become entirely dependent on the people that put them together."

PDX Pop Now! started with an email list and a group of dissatisfied music enthusiasts. There soon followed a three-day, free, all-ages, local music festival that was successful enough to repeat - and grow. Though Clarke is leaving the organization he spearheaded, we've decided to make him a runner-up for his years of dedicated effort.

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