CAUSE Celebrates Multiple National   Civic Leadership  Awards 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2021 — LOS ANGELES, CA — The Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE) announced today that its current and future programs have been recognized through multiple national awards that honor civic leadership. Despite the challenges of a pandemic and a leadership change, these awards highlight the success of CAUSE’s existing programs and the potential of its future programs.

Chosen from over 160 AAPI nonprofits nationwide, CAUSE will receive the Third Place prize of $50,000 to create an innovative national partnership with Teach for America Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Alliances through Asian American Futures and Gold House’s inaugural Gold Futures Challenge. This future-forward program will support AAPI educators to pursue leadership positions, educate students and families on advocacy, and collaboratively build solutions to current gaps in educational spaces. Approximately 100 AAPI educators placed in 50 regions throughout the country are expected to be engaged, an unprecedented nationwide effort to invest in and empower AAPI educators.

Civic Leadership Academy, a nonprofit organization that works to create a national network of civic-minded organizations and leaders formally known as Civic Leadership U.S.A, is recognizing CAUSE for its impact on fostering the next generation of leaders through its most well-known and longest-running program, the CAUSE Leadership Academy (CLA). Since 1991, approximately 250 students have graduated from CLA and many have become leaders in politics, business, and nonprofits. CAUSE congratulates CLA alumnus Shanahan Europa for being named as Civic Leadership Academy’s Intern of the Year and its 2021 CLA cohort for receiving Third Place in Civic Leadership Academy’s Project of the Year (Energy Upgrade California).