Our Praiseworthy Awards and Spark Awards contests rely on our team of volunteer judges. Thank you for your interest in joining!
As a judge, you will review submissions that showcase creativity, excellence, and inspiration. Your discerning eye holds the power to honor those who have explored powerful new ideas, demonstrated unparalleled craft, or left an indelible mark in their field.
Judging Details
- Around April, you and two other judges will be assigned to judge all the entries for one or two specific categories (typically 5–15 entries per category).
- You will have until around July or August to complete your judging.
- You will be given a judging matrix to guide you in assessing and scoring various attributes of each entry.
- In July or August, you will meet virtually with the other two judges in your category to compare scores and share notes. As a team, you will determine either (A) for the Praiseworthy Awards, a first-place, second-place, and third-place winner, or (B) for the Spark Awards, a single winner. You will then report your decision to the Recognition Committee. You also have the right to declare no award if no entries meet the standards of the award.
Benefits of Judging
- Heavily discounted attendance to the Tenth Annual Conference on October 18–19.
- Either free or heavily discounted attendance to the Awards Banquet the evening of October 18 (depending on the format and cost of the banquet, to be determined as it gets closer)
To help avoid feelings of ill-will among those who do not receive an award—especially considering the close-knit nature of our community—we keep the identity of our judges anonymous.