UMass Amherst Alumni Association

Awards & Grants

Distinguished Alumni Service Awards Recipient

Ricardo O. Neal '95

Ricardo Neal’s love of family and community is grounded in his immigrant experience. He is a native of Jamaica; his family immigrated to the United States in 1984 settling in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Neal holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and received his master’s degree in social work from Boston University.

Neal is the executive director of the historic Freedom House in Boston, MA. Freedom House is a nonprofit, community-based organization with a decades long history of promoting the long-term, sustainable economic and social development of Boston’s communities of color. Neal has successfully managed the organization, even during difficult economic periods, broadening the agency’s focus on after-school programs to include community organizing and education policy.

In recent years Neal has focused his professional body of work on transforming urban public education. Through his work at Freedom House, he is a member of the Boston Public School’s High School Renewal Working Group.  He is a founding member of the Multicultural Outreach Dropout Collaborative, an initiative formed to represent organizations based in communities of color with the goal of influencing education reform policy in Boston Public Schools.

Neal is also a progressive philanthropist. In his role of president of the Haymarket People’s Fund, he guides grant-making policies for groups working to restructure their community with a vision of justice and promote positive social change. He also serves as president-elect of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and works to support other initiatives focused on immigrant issues.