From protecting human rights in Nigeria to transforming low-income Chicago neighborhoods, the eight nonprofit organizations in five countries that are recipients of the 2009 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions have diverse missions but a common link. All have a large impact on a modest budget.

This year’s awards continue the Foundation’s tradition of building institutions to help address some of the world’s most challenging problems. Each organization will receive up to $650,000, a significant sum considering their annual budgets range from $200,000 to $4.5 million.

“These organizations may be small but their impact is tremendous,” said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton. “From protecting human rights to improving urban neighborhoods to conserving biodiversity, they are blazing new paths and finding fresh solutions to some of our most difficult challenges. The MacArthur Foundation has a long history of supporting organizations around the world like these that demonstrate the creativity, drive, and vision to make the world more just and peaceful.”

Recipients of the 2009 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions are:

• Access to Justice (Lagos, Nigeria) works to prevent police abuse, eliminate torture, and promote accountability for extra-judicial killings in Nigeria.
• Caribbean Natural Resource Institute (Port of Spain, Trinidad) champions biodiversity conservation through building alliances between the region’s diverse island nations and organizations.
• Center for Neighborhood Technology (Chicago, Ill.) uses cutting-edge research to develop and implement transformative ideas for improving the quality of life in urban neighborhoods, including car sharing and energy audits.
• Centre for Independent Social Research (St. Petersburg, Russia) helps reinvigorate the field of sociology by unleashing the creative and entrepreneurial energies of younger scholars, who produce original, policy-relevant research.
• Chicago Community Loan Fund (Chicago, Ill.) is a leading resource for small and mid-size real estate developers and nonprofits in metropolitan Chicago, providing low-cost, flexible financing and technical assistance.
• Mahila SEWA Trust (Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India) organizes poor, self-employed women workers in India for employment and social security, including income, food and health security.
• National Housing Conference and Center on Housing Policy (Washington, DC) work closely together to broaden the nation’s understanding of its housing challenges and to discern the impact of policies and programs that seek to address the growing need for affordable housing.
• Women of the Don (Novocherkassk, Russia) is a premiere human rights organization in Russia that specializes in combating police abuse.

On June 11, awardees will be honored at a ceremony at MacArthur’s headquarters in Chicago.

MacArthur has a long history of strengthening institutions — from Human Rights Watch, now the largest U.S.-based human rights organization, to the World Resources Institute, the environmental think tank, to Creative Commons, which has changed how people use and think about copyright. Read the press release