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The Nationwide Foundation announced the recipients of the annual George and Gladys Dunlap Cooperative Leadership Award program. The awards support projects that promote cooperatives as a way of doing business, or that increase the capacity of existing cooperatives. This year's award recipients:

Ohio Employee Ownership Center, Kent, Ohio, was awarded $32,000 for its "Building Collaboration Between the Cooperative and the Employee Stock Ownership Sectors in Ohio" project. This program brings together the resources of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, Kent State University and the Ohio Council of Cooperatives to broaden business ownership among ordinary Americans.

Burlington Community Land Trust, Burlington, Vt., was awarded $20,000 to start the Vermont Employee Ownership Center. This nonprofit organization will provide information and resources to owners interested in selling a business to their employees, employee groups interested in purchasing a business and entrepreneurs who wish to start a company with broadly shared ownership.

Cooperative Communicators Association, Lubbock, Texas, was awarded $18,000 to reinvent the association as a "virtual" professional organization by using the Internet and other technologies to provide information and services to its 350 members and others within the cooperative community.

Northcountry Cooperative Foundation, Minneapolis, Minn., was awarded $9,850 to begin the Equity Fund for Cooperative Enterprise. The project is to research and write a plan for a community development capital fund specifically for small cooperative enterprises, which will build upon the strengths of the cooperative model while compensating for its potential weaknesses.

Northwest Cooperative Development Center, Olympia, Wash., was awarded $25,000 for its "Last Mile Electric Cooperative" project. This project will address the critical issues of the lack of farm profitability, a regional electric power shortage and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

George H. Dunlap served on the OFBF board of trustees from 1933 to 1948 and had a distinguished career as a long-time cooperative leader. He was a Nationwide Insurance board member from 1939 to 1975, was board chairman for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company for 31 years, and served as general chairman of chief executive of the insurance companies from 1969 to 1972. The Dunlaps are both deceased.