Call for Nominations: BC Heritage Awards in Canada

Deadline: 28-Feb-23

Nominations are now open for BC Heritage Awards to celebrate outstanding achievements and best practices that have impacted and strengthened all forms of heritage as a valued cultural resource.

They recognize the achievements of individuals, organizations, groups, businesses, and local and regional governments in communities across BC.”

Award Categories

• Conservation: Recognizing best practices in the preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of historic places.
  • NEW! Small but Mighty Conservation Award: Recognizing heritage conservation in communities and organizations whose perseverance and dedication more than compensate for small budgets and few staff.
• Education, Communications, and Awareness: Recognizing excellence in programming that advances the appreciation, understanding, and practice of tangible and intangible cultural heritage as it relates to places in BC.
• Planning and Management: Recognizing best practices for the planning and management of heritage places through reports, studies, and plans, as well as ongoing maintenance, operations, and reprogramming.
• Professional Achievement
  • Lifetime Achievement: Recognizing heritage professionals who have made a career-long, cumulative impact and contribution to the practice and understanding of heritage in BC.
  • NEW! Emerging Heritage Professional: Recognizing heritage professionals who have worked the sector for under 10 years, and nonetheless made an impact on the advancement and understanding of heritage in BC.
• Volunteer
  • Ruby Nobbs Distinguished Service: Recognizing volunteers who have made a life-long commitment, and who have shaped heritage in their communities through significant contributions and leadership
  • Learn more about Ruby Nobbs, and her impact on heritage in BC here.
  • NEW! Outstanding Impact Volunteer: Recognizing volunteers who have demonstrated dedication above and beyond to make a specific program, project or initiative a reality.
• Indigenous and Diverse Cultures: Reconciliation, Redress, and Expanded Recognition: Recognizing initiatives and programs that contribute to the ongoing commitment in an organization to inclusivity, including reconciliation and/or redress, and expanded recognition, and have taken tangible steps that have made differences in how they operate, develop and deliver programs, and inspire their communities.

Eligibility Criteria

• Projects nominated for an award must have been completed within the past three calendar years.
• Nominated individuals must live in British Columbia and sites must be located in the province.
• Nominations with insufficient information will not be considered; it is important that each submission provides sufficient information to describe why the project/person suits the category and why the project/person is worthy of an award.
• Separate phases of large projects are eligible, as long as they are clearly different from previously nominated work.
  • Conservation: Historic buildings and places, and cultural landscapes.
  • Education, Communications, and Awareness: Historic places, cultural heritage, tangible and intangible heritage ; Education or Interpretation through social media, publications, displays, exhibits, or other outputs, actions or initiatives that promote heritage.
  • Planning and Management: Community Heritage Planning; Cultural and heritage resource management; Adaptable and compatible re-uses for continued-use, which may not include full conservation; Planning initiatives for long-term conservation and maintenance plans, community plans, zoning or financial incentives
  • Professional Achievement: Professionals working in the heritage sector within fields such as,Archaeology & Anthropology, Conservation, Craft & Trade, Cultural Tourism, Education, Environmental Assessment, History,  Architecture and Landscape, Engineering, Historic Sites, Museums and Archives, Planners, Public Sector, etc.
  • Volunteer: Must be nominated for work accomplished in a volunteer capacity
  • Indigenous and Diverse Cultures: Reconciliation, Redress, and Expanded Recognition: Tangible and intangible heritage ; Internal (changes within an organization), external (public facing events, programs); Partnerships
• Process
  • The nominations submitted to the BC Heritage Awards are reviewed by a jury of peers, who will consider alignment to the outlined criteria and the completeness of the submitted information.
  • Special consideration will be given to projects that reflect one or more emerging heritage priorities. Nominators can provide details in the Additional Considerations section of the nomination form to share how these priorities were incorporated in the nominee’s work.
• Priorities include:
  • Community building
  • Cultural heritage awareness
  • Technology and social media
  • Diversity and inclusion
  • Environmental resiliency and climate action
  • Recognition of and partnership with First Nations and distinct cultures.

For more information, visit BC Heritage Awards.