Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross' RISE initiative to receive esteemed Stuart Scott ENSPIRE award

The Miami Dolphins are well-known for their philanthropic efforts, hosting countless community events and contributing time, effort and funds to numerous charity organizations across South Florida and the entire nation. Owner Stephen Ross is a major part of that.

Two years after the 2013 BullyGate scandal, Ross created the RISE initiative, which uses sports to combat racism nationwide and help accelerate social progress, and in the relatively short time since its inception, it has already touched the lives of tens of thousands of youth all across the United States.

And now, Ross' efforts are getting recognized on a national level. 

On Wednesday, it was announced that the nonprofit organization would be given the prestigious ​Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award at the third annual Sports Humanitarian Awards presented by ESPN and sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb on July 11th.

This event will honor sports leagues, teams, individuals and people in the sports community that are using the power of sports to make a favorable impact on society. The award includes a $100,000 grant from ESPN for leadership in improving race relations.

RISE has received the support of several athletes in the NFL, including Dolphins safety Michael Thomas, who has also been highly involved in equality-based movements. He congratulated RISE on the job it has done and for receiving the award.

“They were groundbreaking and got ahead of race relation conversations that needed to be had,” Thomas said. “For RISE to give these athletes a platform to voice their opinion on how they were feeling was awesome. The nation really got behind it and this is something that will continue to grow.”

Stephen Ross has engaged and personally recruited influential leaders to be part of RISE’s board of directors, including all of the major sports league commissioners and sports broadcast executives, and there is no doubt he will continue to make his RISE movement grow as more support is drummed up to combat racism in America, and the rest of the world.

“We are honored that RISE is a recipient of the Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award, named after a man synonymous with bringing all walks of life together through the unifying power of sports,” Ross said in a statement released by the Dolphins. “I want to thank all of the players, sports executives and league officials who have united to make a positive impact around such an important issue.”

This story was written by Luis Sung. Follow him on Twitter: @LuisDSung