Six years before she received the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. She was the Templeton Prize's first recipient (the year was 1973), and ever since Sir John Templeton has encouraged his Foundation staff to create philanthropic prizes to honor excellence and recognize extraordinary vision and accomplishment.

We know that prizes can make a difference – especially at the beginning of a career. We have seen that prizes can educate people about new solutions or innovations – and maybe even change how people think about a particular issue.

But recently there has been a verifiable explosion of new prize programs. The United States currently has over 5,000 major prizes, with 90% of these created in the past 20 years. There is now real competition for prize recognition and publicity. We have come to believe that prize programs require entrepreneurial dynamism to be effective.

Most critically, there is no consensus within philanthropy on whether prizes drive innovation or truly inspire people.

We are currently developing an initiative to research the "logics" of effective philanthropic prizes. Please feel free to email the Foundation at prizes@templeton.org to learn more about our efforts.

Charles L. Harper, Jr., D. Phil.
Senior Vice President
Arthur J. Schwartz, Ed.D.
Executive Vice President
Prizes