First global fundraising awards announced
Howard Lake | 13 July 2010 | News
Global recognition awaits the winners of the first international awards programme for celebrating fundraising excellence. Capacity building charity the Resource Alliance has announced the Global Awards For Fundraising, which will draw together the winners of more than a dozen country’s national awards. Each country’s winners will then be judged against each other to determine the international winners.
Participating national awards hosts include the UK’s Institute of Fundraising, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) based in the USA, the Fundraising Institute of Australia, together with associations in Europe, and from India, Japan and Brazil.
The new awards are designed to “honour and celebrate fundraising excellence while setting aspirational standards and best practice on a world-wide scale”. The awards are part of the Resource Alliance’s core objectives of professionalising and stimulating fundraising through promoting best practice and innovation.
The organisation hopes that the new awards will be an incentive for more countries to set up national associations to support their non-profit organisations.
The RA has itself already set up national awards schemes across 10 countries in the global South, including the India NGO Awards, launched in 2005 and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
The first global awards will be presented at the Resource Alliance’s flagship event the International Fundraising Congress (IFC) 2010, held in the Netherlands this October, where the RA will celebrate its 30th anniversary remembering three decades of developing fundraising capabilities worldwide.
Neelam Makhijani, CEO of the Resource Alliance, announces the first RA Global Awards for Fundraising
Lindsay Boswell, CEO of the UK’s Institute of Fundraising, said: “The Resource Alliance Global Awards for Fundraising programme is a great idea and is absolutely the RA’s territory as they are truly global in their reach. I’m really looking forward to seeing our own awards winners proving that the best of British can also lead the world when it comes to fundraising. We are really pleased to be working in partnership with the RA in recognising the ‘best of the best’.”
Paulette Maehara, CEO of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) based in the USA, added her support for the new awards saying: “AFP encourages the recognition of fundraising excellence and the importance of philanthropy to increasing capacity of civil societies around the world.”
Only winners of the current year’s national awards will be eligible for entry into the Resource Alliance Global Awards for Fundraising, and entries will be accepted only from national awards hosts. The national hosts will determine which of their awards winners will be entered to represent their country on the global awards stage and they will be required to submit a brief entry form. They can choose to enter one or more categories and shortlisted entrants will be invited to the awards ceremony at the IFC. Entries will be judged by an independent jury made up of five eminent professionals from around the world.
The Resource Alliance Global Awards for Fundraising will comprise four categories, two for organisations and two for individuals:
* Big Idea, Small Budget Award
* Innovative Fundraising Campaign Award
* The Global Fundraiser Award
* The Outstanding Volunteer Award
The deadline for entries is 1 September 2010.
www.resource-alliance.org
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.