You've got to be in it to win it
Howard Lake | 31 July 2012 | Blogs
I’ve been lucky enough to sit on three judging panels this year for charity awards. And I’ve been a judge several times over the past few years. Each time I am surprised at the relatively modest numbers of entries that are submitted. You might imagine that charities take the decision to focus only on awards that have a cash rather than kudos value. Not so.
- “Typically, 200 to 250 organizations are nominated for the Hilton Humanitarian Prize each year” says the FAQ page at the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. Awarded annually to an organisation doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering, it is worth $1.5 million. How many charities and nonprofits around the world could qualify do you imagine?
- Earlier this month The REaD Group plc awarded two prizes worth £60,000 to charities to help them use data more effectively for fundraising. They received 54 entries.
- The Institute of Fundraising’s National Fundraising Awards received around 250 entries this year.
Of course, charities shouldn’t spend time entering all awards: they need to choose the relevant ones and those that will be a genuine reward to them. But there is only one way to win any award – and that is to enter it.
By not entering relevant awards, you guarantee that another organisation will win it, and you make the judges’ lives a little easier.
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I do hope the figures above encourage you to think you do have a better chance than you imagined. Given UK Fundraising is partnering with Blackbaud Europe for its first Digital Fundraising Awards, I’ll take this opportunity to encourage you to enter those by the end of this week: 3 August is the deadline [now extended to 24 August 2012]. There is no fee. Good luck!
www.digitalfundraisingawards.co.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.