Given the right tools, you can use awards to promote best practices among your membership base and beyond. Let’s see how it works with this article from the supporter of the European Association Awards 2024's application process, Evalato.
Awarding best practices in your membership base
Awards are one of the most efficient ways to promote industry standards and best practices among your membership base. You can opt to reward certain practices or efforts implemented in your membership base, such as:
Various sustainability practices - such as implementing a recycling programme, eliminating paper use, using greener commute options, etc.
Use of renewable energy sources — investing and/or using solar, wind power, etc.
Inclusivity initiatives — inclusive team-building activities, organising international potlucks to celebrate diversity, etc.
To promote best practices in your membership base, you can:
Set up a separate competition — you can select specific best practices and create an awards programme to draw attention to them.
Include categories in an existing programme — if your Association already runs awards and your usual programme is paid, you can make specific categories free to encourage participation;
Create a public-voting power list — you can also opt to recognise the people behind some extraordinary projects or best practices;
Set up an innovation challenge — you can promote best practices by organising a contest, hackathon, etc., giving out prizes to the most outstanding solutions;
Run grant or CSR programmes — setting up a grant or sponsorship programme will help award and promote best practices further, granting funding to the most impactful initiatives among your Association’s members.
As a bonus, recognising best practices with your awards program will boost its positive image, potentially expanding your network in the process.
Spreading the word beyond your membership base
Awards are a powerful marketing and PR tool and as such, can be used to promote best practices in a circle that spreads beyond your membership base.
The ripple effect can be quite impressive:
You showcase the winners — it starts with your organisation and showcasing the winners and their achievements. A great awards management platform has you covered with a specially dedicated webpage. You can also announce the results on social media, distribute marketing materials, create a special report etc., emphasising best practices.
The winners publicise the award — then, they are also likely to spread the word about the award they have received through their own marketing and communication channels, further enhancing the impact.
Media outlets show interest — ideally, media outlets could also show interest in the awards and the achievements behind them, garnering even more attention and publicity.
The positive buzz related to your awards that promote best practices (or any awards programme, for that matter) will certainly attract new entrants to the next edition of your programme, potentially enlarging your membership base and, by implication, the impact of your awards.
Growing your success with the right tools
What you choose to reward is up to you. In any case, however, you will need a reliable solution to organise the awards and magnify their impact.
Quick set-up with templates — while promoting best practices with awards is an important undertaking, it doesn’t mean it has to be time-consuming too. Choose a platform that enables you to set up your programme in under an hour. For example, Evalato has a preconfigured customisable template which covers not only awards but also grants, competitions, hackathons, powerlists, etc.
Multiple categories — create as many categories as you wish, make them paid or free, or opt for a combination of both (for example, adding free best practices categories to a paid awards programme);
Showcasing winners — For example, Evalato lets you tag winners and showcase their achievements on a ready-to-use webpage that will help generate positive buzz;
Cloning a programme — setting up awards as a regular, rather than a one-time event will further motivate stakeholders to apply the practices you have opted to reward to quality for the next edition.
The bottom line
In a nutshell, awards give you the power to nudge your Association members toward practices that would benefit your organisation and the community. As a bonus, they will improve your Association’s image and standing, and even help you expand your membership base.
See how Evalato can help you organise awards to promote best practices: evalato.com.