Elevate Prize winners gain more than $300K in funding. They learn to better tell their own stories

For Mónica Ramírez, being named one of this year’s 10 Elevate Prize winners means so much more than the monetary and structural support that comes with it.

It means the work she does with her Fremont, Ohio-based nonprofit Justice for Migrant Women, which advocates for the rights and needs of migrant and rural women and other marginalized communities, is still valued despite the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

“As immigrant and migrant community members are being threatened and attacked around our country, it’s really important to have shows of support like the Elevate Prize is providing because we’ve seen a retraction -- a big retraction -- in support,” said Ramirez, who burst into tears when she learned she had won. “The award means we are able to do the work that we know is so urgently needed.”

Like all Elevate Prize winners announced Tuesday, Justice for Migrant Women will receive $300,000 in unrestricted funding and Ramirez, its founder and president, will receive support and training on organizational growth and increasing the group’s visibility.

Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Garcia Jayaram told The Associated Press that a group’s public profile has become more important these days. Not only does it help with fundraising and informing the public, but visibility “is also a form of protection,” she said.

“It’s more important than ever to double down on leaders like Monica,” said Jayaram.

To help Elevate Prize winners get more attention for their work, Jayaram said the foundation is launching “Good Is Trending,” an initiative that will include taking over NASDAQ's Times Square billboards on Tuesday to shine a spotlight on the winners.

That bigger spotlight is something prize winner Mara Fleishman, CEO of Chef Ann Foundation, which brings made-from-scratch meals to schools, hopes will bring her nonprofit to the next level. The Boulder, Colorado-based organization has already attracted support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Waverley Street Foundation for its work, which supports elementary and secondary schools in developing menus that are less dependent on processed foods and utilize more fresh local produce.

“We’ve worked with over 17,000 schools and reached more than five million kids,” Fleishman said. “But how do we take the work we’ve done and turn it into something digestible for legislators and advocates to understand what is possible?”

Fleishman said her foundation needs to find ways to get the public to become a “force multiplier” for its message and carry it into school board meetings and statehouses around the country.

A lot of that work can be done through storytelling, Jayaram said. And the Elevate Prize selection panel took the potential stories the nominees could tell into account when choosing the winners.

“People pay more attention to people than they do to issues,” Jayaram said. “So when you can ground an issue in the story of a person, of a community, of a neighborhood, suddenly the whole world can start to engage and relate to that because it’s not that different from a community and a neighborhood and a family somewhere else.”

The Elevate Prize Foundation has believed in the power of storytelling for years. Last year, it even launched its own production house Elevate Studios to tell the stories of its prize winners more effectively, on platforms ranging from YouTube videos to feature-length documentaries released in theaters.

Ramirez says she looks forward to telling the stories of the people she supports through Justice for Migrant Women.

“I really think that the Elevate Prize is going to help us give a microphone to the people that we serve,” she said. “That’s my hope.”

The 2026 class of Elevate Prize winners are: Shabana Basij-Rasikh, president and co-founder of SOLA (School of Leadership, Afghanistan), an Afghan-led organization advocating for social change through girls’ education; Hillary Blout, founder and executive director of For the People, which helps people get released from prison; Manu Chopra, CEO of Karya, which brings AI advancements to low-income communities; Mara Fleishman, CEO of Chef Ann Foundation, which brings made-from-scratch meals to schools; Aisha Nyandoro, CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, which supports residents living in federally subsidized affordable housing; Tom Osborn, founder and CEO of Shamiri, which brings mental health care to underserved regions, starting with Africa; Ai-jen Poo, executive director of Caring Across Generations, which centers care as a national priority; Mónica Ramírez, founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women, which supports migrant and rural women’s rights; Krutika Ravishankar, co-founder and executive director of Farmers for Forests, which protects and restores forests across India; Utkarsh Saxena, executive director of Adalat AI, which develops AI tools for the court system.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

CEO of the Chef Ann Foundation, Mara Fleishman, a winner of this year's Elevate Prize, poses for a portrait at her home, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)

CEO of the Chef Ann Foundation, Mara Fleishman, a winner of this year's Elevate Prize; her son Jake Anderson, center; and daughter Lucy Anderson, left, take their family dog for a walk, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)

CEO of the Chef Ann Foundation, Mara Fleishman, a winner of this year's Elevate Prize, works alongside her executive assistant Kim Rosenbarger at her home, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)

CEO of the Chef Ann Foundation, Mara Fleishman, a winner of this year's Elevate Prize, makes granola for her family at her home, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)

CEO of the Chef Ann Foundation, Mara Fleishman, a winner of this year's Elevate Prize, chops apples for a salad at her home, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)

Hotel magnate Thomas Pritzker will step down as the executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels after details of his affiliation with Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in documents related to the burgeoning investigation of ties between the notorious sex trafficker and the elite and powerful.

Pritzker, in a prepared statement, said he deeply regrets his association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, a long time associate of Epstein who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

“I exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner,” Pritzker said in a statement. "I condemn the actions and the harm caused by Epstein and Maxwell and I feel deep sorrow for the pain they inflicted on their victims.”

There are numerous emails between Pritzker and Epstein included in a cache of Epstein-related documents recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice, with several detailing attempts for dinner meet ups and invitations to various functions.

Interactions between the two continued even after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Emails made public late last year show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the financier.

Epstein died by suicide while incarcerated in 2019.

Pritzker, 75, who is the cousin of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, was the executive chairman at Hyatt for more than 20 years. His retirement is effective immediately. Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian will succeed Pritzker as chairman.

Hyatt has more than 1,500 hotels and all-inclusive resorts in more than 83 countries.

Revelations of ties to Epstein have led to the departure or ousting of multiple high-profile individuals in recent days.

Dubai announced last week that it was replacing the chairman of one of the world’s largest logistics companies, DP World, because of his ties to Epstein.

Also last week, Kathy Ruemmler, the top lawyer at storied investment bank Goldman Sachs and former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, announced her resignation after emails between her and Jeffrey Epstein showed a close relationship where she described him as an “older brother” and downplayed his sex crimes.

Brad Karp resigned as chairman of one of the most prestigious U.S. law firms earlier this month, saying news coverage of his exchanges with Epstein had “created a distraction.”

Karp had served as chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison since 2008. The New York firm has advanced the cause of civil rights, handled the legal affairs of corporate power brokers and grown into a multibillion-dollar global enterprise.

Late last year, King Charles III striped his brother, formerly Prince Andrew, of all his titles and honors, for his relationship with Epstein. This month, King Charles said that he is ready to “ support ’’ UK police examining claims that his brother gave confidential information to Epstein.

A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, photographed Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, shows a photo of Epstein on a inmate report from the Federal Bureau of Prisons . (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

FILE - President of Hyatt foundation Thomas Pritzker is photographed in Buenos Aires, Friday, May 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)