Submit Nominations for 2022 Leadership Awards in United States

Deadline: 7-May-21

The James Irvine Foundation is currently accepting nominations for the 2022 Leadership Awards to recognize individuals advancing breakthrough solutions to critical issues facing California.

Each Award recipient’s organization receives $250,000 and help sharing their solutions with policymakers and other leaders in their communities.

• Who should nominate: The Foundation welcomes nominations from people who are well acquainted with the nominee and can describe their alignment with the award criteria. Some nominators are familiar with the nominee’s policy field and can describe how their approach is different from their peers or ripe for expansion; others can describe how they or their peers have been affected by the nominee’s work. The nominator must be someone other than the nominee or a family member and, preferably, not employed by the nominee.
• Demonstrating significance: The significance section provides an opportunity to describe the problem the leader and organization are working to solve and why it is important to California. Strong nominations provide the number of people affected by the problem.
• Types of innovation: They consider many forms of innovation, including work that:
  • Represents an entirely new approach or a creative leap from standard practices
  • Is not widely known or practiced in California
  • Applies a proven approach in a new way or within a new context
• Demonstrating effectiveness: Competitive nominations address the problem described in the significance section and provide tangible evidence of the effectiveness of the leader’s work by referencing evaluations, impact data, or examples of how the work has achieved change or directly impacted people’s lives. Changes within the organization like budget or staff levels are not by themselves examples of effectiveness.
• Use the Prompts: Use the prompts in the nominations form to guide your responses. They describe the types of information often included in the most competitive nominations.
• Word counts: Each section has a word limit. The higher the word count, the more detail we would like you to share about the leader and their work. Avoid repeating information provided in a previous section.

• The Foundation recognizes leaders whose work improves people’s lives, creates opportunity, and contributes to a better California. They especially encourage nominations that reflect the diversity of California’s population and regions. The most competitive nominations describe leaders addressing critical issues with innovative approaches that have been proven effective. They ask nominators to review the selection criteria and nominations questions carefully before nominating.
• Nominated leaders may:
  • Be an individual or a pair of leaders
  • Work in any sector (nonprofit, public, or private)
  • Work in any field (such as education, health, housing, economic development, or the environment)
• Nominees must be residents of California. They seek nominees who have not been extensively recognized for their work through other awards.

• Significance: The leader’s work addresses an issue that is critical to California, and the issue is anticipated to affect the quality of life of a substantial number of Californians into the future.
• Innovation: The leader is advancing an innovative strategy that directly improves people’s lives. The work represents an entirely new approach, is not widely known or practiced, or applies a proven approach in a new way or within a new context.
• Effectiveness: The leader has been highly effective in achieving positive change. Their work has a measurable record of accomplishment.
• Inclusiveness: The leader helps build bridges among people with differing viewpoints or different backgrounds. The leader brings diverse experiences to their work and creates opportunity for underserved communities.
• Timing: The leader’s project is at a stage conducive to replication and informing policy, and there exists urgency or opportunity for the nominee to expand their work.
• Leadership Capacity: The leader is well-positioned and prepared to take the next step in advancing change.

For more information, visit https://irvineawards.org/nominations/