Irene Diamond

Storyteller, risk taker, a woman who has always gone where few had gone before. Irene Diamond you have made a career of beating the odds.

As a senior story editor in the film industry at a time when few women held that position, you "discovered" the property that became Casablanca, one of the greatest films of the 20th century. As a talent scout you were instrumental in bringing two great actors—Robert Redford and Burt Lancaster—to Hollywood. For those achievements alone, generations of movie fans throughout the world are forever in your debt.

We honor you today for your achievements as president of the Aaron Diamond Foundation, which you and your late husband established in the 1950s, and which gave away more than $220 million to philanthropic cause. Under your leadership the foundation embarked on a major funding program and a ten-year payout that ended in December 1996. During that time it distributed all of its assets to hundreds of programs, mostly in New York City, in arts and culture, medical research, minority education, human rights and civil liberties.

The foundation's emphasis on medical research made it the nation's largest private supporter of AIDS research. It also played a pivotal role in establishing the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center for the City of New York, which opened in 1991. In your newly organized personal giving program, The Irene Diamond Fund, you continue to support those causes close to your heart, including the Juilliard School, Young Concert Artists, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Human Rights Watch.

For your trail-blazing gifts to combat the scourge of AIDS and to educate the public about the disease and for your lifelong commitment to the philanthropic ideals of Andrew Carnegie, the 21 institutions which he founded present the inaugural Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy to you with pride and admiration.