Hallmarks of excellence

Click on the links below to find out more about the criteria for successfully entering the Charity Awards and the conflict policy for Charity Awards judges.

• Hallmarks of excellence
• Nominations for an Outstanding Leadership Award
• Conflicts policy for Judges

Hallmarks of excellence

The independent judging panel will take a range of factors into account when choosing winners. Successful nominees will be able to demonstrate achievement in most but not necessarily all of the following hallmarks of excellence:

i	Leadership: Inspiration in the pursuit of management goals, galvanising action within an organisation and encouraging others by example.
ii	Planning: Developing a strategic plan for achieving your mission.
iii	Innovation: Imaginative and creative use of original or adapted ideas and techniques. This could involve the application to a charity’s work of concepts first applied in other sectors.
iv	Enterprise: New ways of raising new funds or support, especially from non-traditional sources. New methods of controlling costs, especially administration costs, through appropriate and self-financing control measures.
v	Learning: A culture of continual improvement and responsiveness to changing needs and attitudes.
vi	People development: A commitment to retaining, developing and motivating staff and volunteers at all levels.
vii	Impact measurement: The use of appropriate techniques to measure the impact of your activity or organisation. This could involve outcome focused measurement and input to output ratios.
viii	Effectiveness:  Achievement in meeting or exceeding targets for delivery of charitable objectives.
ix	Accountability: Internal and external communication through which volunteers, staff, funders, beneficiaries and the public can understand and influence the activities of your charity and how it meets its objectives.
x	Sustainability: Elements in the management of a project or charity which will ensure that it takes on a life of its own after the initial input of resources and/or management effort.

IMPORTANT
Excellence in management is important, not as an end in its own right but because it helps an organisation deliver its charitable objectives. Please bear this in mind when completing the nomination, especially at questions when you explain the end results of your work

Nominations for an Outstanding Leadership Award

In addition to the charity award winners, there is an Outstanding Leadership Award to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to excellence in charities over time.

As the underlying principle of the awards is leadership and management excellence, the judges are particularly looking for nominations for individuals whose professional lives have been integrated to a substantial degree with charities.

While recognising that inspiring contributions are made by private individuals who devote themselves to charitable work, the purpose of these awards is to identify contributions to the leadership of charities as organisations, leading to improved services to beneficiaries. It is not necessary to have worked in charities for a lifetime to be nominated for this award.

Successful nominees will have many positive leadership characteristics, including the following:

• Innovation: Someone who has taken charities in positive new directions, or advanced achievement in the sector by applying concepts originating in other sectors.
• Inspiration: Someone who stands as an example of commitment to excellence, perhaps having demonstrated leadership and achievement in a variety of contexts within the charity sector.
• Influence: Someone who has played a significant part in promoting excellence in charities, and represented a positive image of the sector to a wider audience.

Conflicts policy for Judges

There is no prohibition on nominations for a Charity Award from charities with whom a Judge is associated but if at the time of judging (or at any time during the project nominated for the Award) a Judge

Is, or has been within the last three years, an employee or trustee of a nominated charity:

• The Judge/s concerned will absent themselves from discussions of all nominations in the category to which the nomination is allocated, whether for a specific Awards Category or for the Overall Winner category.
• In certain circumstances (such as multiple conflicts) this may necessitate a Judge retiring completely from the Judging Panel for the year in question.

Is, or has been, a partner or employee of a firm of professional advisers or provider of services to the nominated charity:

• Then, subject to the extent of the conflict, the Judge may be asked to absent himself from consideration of all nominations in the category to which the nomination is allocated, whether for a specific Awards Category or for the Overall Winner category.

Has a lesser connection with the nominated charity, such as (1) being an employee of a body providing funding to a nominated charity, (2) being a trustee, employee, or adviser or funder of an associated entity (associated in this context would include other autonomous organisations in a federal structure or international network) (3) having a family member falling into this or the preceding categories:

• The Judge/s concerned will declare their conflicts (but not be required to absent themselves from any discussions unless asked to do so by the Chair of the Judging Panel)

The publisher's decision on this Conflicts Policy and its application will be final.

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