Honorees
Cause Strategy Partners
The Advocate’s Award
Cause Strategy Partners works at the intersection of nonprofits and corporations to connect a diverse network of talented professionals to nonprofit board service opportunities through their award-winning BoardLead platform and curated board matching, placement, and training services. By partnering with the world’s leading corporations and global professional services firms, Cause Strategy Partners -- founded in 2015 by Rob Acton -- has placed more than 3,100 business and community leaders on the boards of 1,500 nonprofits across the United States and United Kingdom, supported by wrap-around training and support.
Since Cause Strategy Partners’ inception, The Family Center has been a critical BoardLead partner, resulting in seven elected board members to The Family Center's Board of Directors, including Board Chair Emeritus Joel M. Field III. The Family Center has also received four junior board, or Leadership Council, members through Cause Strategy Partners’ expanded BoardLead model. Board and Leadership Council members from Cause Strategy Partners have made a profound impact on The Family Center and garnered a diverse array of resources, enabling The Family Center to expand its work and mission during their tenure.
Kiana Muschett-Owes
The Sustainer’s Award
Kiana Muschett-Owes, known to many as Katie O, was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Brooklyn College, and, more recently, from the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women program. Cooking and community have always been a passion for Katie O, since the days when she was a young child cooking alongside her late Grandma Peaches. Grandma Peaches’ and Papa’s home was a community hub where all were welcome and greeted with a hot, delicious meal.
From this foundation, Katie O Soul Food Restaurant and Soul Food to the People were born. Katie O Soul Food Restaurant opened its doors in 2014 in Brooklyn. Today, it also houses Soul Food to the People, a non-profit that Kiana founded in 2020 when COVID-19 struck and halted normal operations for restaurants. From their inception, Soul Food to the People and Katie O’s have fed over 220,000 food insecure New Yorkers for free. Kiana’s social justice mission, amazing food, and love for community caught the eye of CEO Ivy Gamble Cobb and a partnership was forged in 2024. Since then, The Family Center and Katie O’s have provided a no-cost, family-style annual Thanksgiving feast feeding over 1,400 community members.
Richard Osterweil
The Founder’s Award
A working artist, Richard Osterweil creates artwork that has been featured around the world and written about in such publications as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. In 1992, Richard was the subject of a full-length documentary, Painting the Town, which premiered at The Film Society of Lincoln Center. Shown in theaters around the country and on TV numerous times throughout the 1990s, the film covers Richard’s life as a painter, taxi driver, party crasher and infiltrator of high society. Richard is The Family Center’s longest-serving Board member, joining the Board in 1998. A lifelong New Yorker, Richard feels a strong commitment to the children and families of The Family Center. Richard’s dedication is manifest in his more than 25-year relationship with The Family Center, including mentoring a number of children over the years.
Dan Krauth
Master of Ceremony
Dan Krauth is an award winning investigative journalist for WABC Eyewitness News.
Dan has received an Edward R. Murrow Award and multiple Emmy Awards for his reporting. His stories have included uncovering a growing threat to drinking water and exposing how much empty government buildings are costing tax payers. His series of stories into plastic surgery complications also led to changes in state law and also changed worldwide guidelines regarding how surgeries should be performed. Most recently his investigations helped improve the conditions for inmates and officers inside Rikers Island jail. In addition, he was the first in the Tri-State to expose how COVID-19 was disproportionately impacting inner city communities which caused city leaders to reallocate its resources.
Prior to joining Eyewitness News, Dan spent five years working at WTVJ in Miami as an investigative journalist. He also worked at stations in West Palm Beach, Grand Rapids and Fort Wayne. His first job in television news was a morning show producer for WREX in Rockford, IL. Dan grew up in suburban Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan.
