On any given day in Palm Beach County, the work of a nonprofit may unfold quietly.
It happens when a student who once considered college out of reach sits down with a mentor to complete an application. It happens when a family finds support during a difficult season, when an abandoned animal receives medical attention, when an arts organization introduces a child to the stage, or when someone navigating illness discovers that help is available.
These moments rarely arrive with applause. More often, they take place in classrooms, clinics, shelters, community centers, and modest offices where nonprofit professionals and volunteers stretch limited resources to meet needs that rarely stop growing.
Once a year, however, Palm Beach County pauses to recognize them.
The Hats Off Nonprofit Awards will return to the Kravis Center’s Cohen Pavilion on Thursday, October 15, for a particularly meaningful celebration: the event’s 10th anniversary. Organized by Nonprofits First, the annual gathering recognizes nonprofit organizations, executives, professionals, volunteers, and community partners whose work strengthens life throughout Palm Beach County.
Florida Atlantic University President Adam Hasner and Jillian Hasner, the former statewide CEO of Take Stock in Children, will serve as honorary chairs for the milestone event.
Their involvement provides a prominent public face for the evening, but the lasting importance of Hats Off extends far beyond its stage. The event offers something the nonprofit sector does not always receive: visibility. It gives the community an opportunity to see the people behind the programs, understand the expertise required to sustain an effective organization, and recognize that compassion alone is not enough to solve complicated social challenges.
Good intentions may inspire a nonprofit’s mission, but leadership, governance, accountability and operational strength determine how effectively that mission can be carried forward.
Founded in 2005, the organization helps Palm Beach County nonprofits build the internal capacity needed to serve their communities responsibly and sustainably. Its work includes professional development, leadership education, management support, and an accreditation process intended to strengthen nonprofit practices.
The Hats Off Nonprofit Awards supports that work as both Nonprofits First’s signature fundraising event and the county’s leading nonprofit recognition program. Proceeds help fund the education, accreditation, and leadership-development resources that organizations rely upon long after the awards have been presented.
A Decade of Recognition
When the Hats Off Nonprofit Awards began, it created a countywide platform for a sector that is often fragmented by mission.
An environmental organization may appear to have little in common with a youth mentoring program. A cultural institution may operate very differently from a health and wellness nonprofit. An animal welfare group, family services provider, and educational foundation may serve different populations and confront different challenges.
Yet all of them must recruit capable leaders, oversee budgets, measure results, communicate with supporters, and remain accountable to the people they serve.
Hats Off brings those organizations into the same room.
Over the past decade, the event has grown into a sold-out annual celebration, drawing nonprofit professionals, volunteers, donors, civic leaders, and community partners. The gathering recognizes achievement while encouraging collaboration among people who may discover that their missions intersect more often than they realized.
Those connections matter because many of the county’s most difficult challenges cannot be addressed by a single organization.
By celebrating collaboration alongside individual accomplishment, the awards reinforce an important reality: community impact is rarely produced in isolation.
The 2026 categories reflect the breadth of that work. Nonprofit of the Year Impact Awards will recognize organizations serving arts and culture, education, environment and animal welfare, family services, and health and wellness. Additional honors will recognize nonprofit innovation, lifetime achievement, executive and professional leadership, volunteers, community heroes, collaborators, and those considered the most valuable players within their organizations.
The categories are wide-ranging because the nonprofit sector itself is wide-ranging. Together, these organizations help create the social infrastructure of Palm Beach County—the network of services, experiences and opportunities that can determine whether a person feels supported, connected and capable of moving forward.
Leadership Rooted in Education
As honorary chairs, Adam and Jillian Hasner will serve as ambassadors for the anniversary event and help draw greater attention to that nonprofit network.
Adam Hasner’s role as president of Florida Atlantic University places him at the helm of one of the region’s most consequential educational institutions. His career has also included public service in the Florida Legislature and involvement with nonprofit causes. Florida Atlantic has contributed to the sector through its nonprofit management education and through initiatives connecting students with mentorship and career opportunities.
Jillian Hasner brings extensive nonprofit leadership experience to the role. As the former statewide CEO of Take Stock in Children, she worked to expand educational access and long-term opportunity for students across Florida. The organization’s model of mentorship, college readiness and scholarship support demonstrates how sustained nonprofit involvement can alter the trajectory of a young person’s life.
Their professional paths reflect a theme that runs through much of the nonprofit community: meaningful progress often begins with education, but it depends upon access, mentorship and institutions prepared to support people over time.
Nonprofits First President and CEO Trudy Crowetz described the couple’s work in education, public service and nonprofit causes as representative of the leadership Hats Off was created to celebrate.
The honorary chair role is ceremonial, but it also carries a practical purpose. The Hasners will help elevate awareness of the nonprofit sector at a time when many organizations are facing greater demand for services, heightened competition for funding, and the continuing challenge of recruiting and retaining qualified professionals and volunteers.
The People Behind the Missions
The 10th anniversary event will be guided by a host committee of professionals, volunteers and community leaders. Diane Smith of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and Dr. Peter Cruise of Florida Atlantic University will serve as committee co-chairs. Bill Bone of Bill Bone Law Group will return as emcee.
When the recipients take the stage in October, the awards will carry the names of individual people and organizations. Behind each name, however, will be a much larger story.
There will be staff members who answered calls after normal working hours, volunteers who kept returning even when no one was watching and board members who accepted responsibility for protecting a mission larger than themselves. There will be donors who trusted an organization to turn generosity into measurable action and community partners who understood that sharing credit often produces better results than seeking it.
There will also be people who may never attend the ceremony but whose lives reflect the value of the work being honored.
They are the students who persisted, the families who regained stability, the patients who felt less alone, the animals that found homes and the residents who encountered art, nature, opportunity or assistance because a nonprofit was present when it mattered.
Those are the stories that give the Hats Off Nonprofit Awards their meaning.
Nominations for the 2026 awards are open through Friday, July 31. The process offers the community an opportunity to look closely at the organizations and individuals working throughout Palm Beach County and consider whose efforts deserve greater recognition.
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Editor’s note: For information about nominations, attendance, and sponsorship opportunities, visit HatsOffAwards.org.
