The OpenWater Blog

The Importance of Linking Organizational Goals & Your Awards Program

Your awards, like your organization, are an important reflection of your goals, your values, and the difference that you and your team want to see take place within your industry. So, why should your branding be any different?

Truth be told, it shouldn’t. In fact, in order to run a successful program, it’s crucial that your awards program link to the goals of your organization. And here’s why:

Retain and Gain Members

If you’ve ever dreamt of retaining more members but have been struggling to through your normal organizational functions, an awards program can help.

Think about this: you design a program where the best of the best in your organization come together and are recognized for their good service, accomplishments, or other achievements. Add in some prestigious, industry-known judges and what do you get? You get high-quality entrants pouring in submissions for approval and recognition from industry experts.

The additional benefit is that once your program is over, these new members are likely to remain members of your organization. Old members? They get to participate too, meaning that they remain engaged with your organization and interested in what you have going on.

Build Prestige for the Organization

Prestige. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? And, when you’re an organization, it’s even more critical to develop a prestigious reputation to stand out amongst the countless competitors within your industry. Luckily, an awards program can do all of this and more.

In fact, awards are useful in building prestige through many different aspects, including:

• Judges – Securing industry-leading experts as your awards judges is crucial for your organization’s prestige. Not only does doing so lend an air of legitimacy to your program, but it also encourages higher-quality submissions.
• Visibility – Sometimes the sheer visibility of an awards program and your number of entries is enough to build prestige within your organization. You can accomplish this through a public gallery of current entries or through other methods on social media as well.
• Website – Your awards website is the key to all success. On it, you can communicate previous winners, qualifications of your judges, or simply information regarding the prestige of the award itself. Needless to say, you can build some serious credibility on this one platform.

Earn Additional Non-Dues Revenue

When you plan, manage, and execute your awards program to perfection, great things can happen. And by great things, we’re talking non-dues revenue in addition to all of the other exceptional benefits we’ve already covered above.

When many executives hear the words “awards program” they immediately think, “how much is that going to cost my organization?” In reality, most awards programs are actually paid for by the submission fees themselves. This means that any additional revenue goes straight into your organization.

What has your organization gained after implementing an awards program? Share your own success in the comments below.

Want to take your organization one step further? Be sure to download our Executive’s Guide to learn all the secrets that can take your awards program to the next level.

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Miriam Hancock

Miriam Hancock
Miriam is the Marketing Coordinator for OpenWater. When she isn't writing and designing content she paints and cooks for her own personal blog.

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