What award judges actually read
I write award nominations for a living, or at least for part of one. Crain’s 40 Under 40, national retail programs, rising-star lists in finance. Here are the uncomfortable mechanics: a judge gets a stack, a rubric and a deadline. Your nominee’s life work gets about four minutes.
Most nominations lose in the first paragraph because they open with the company instead of the person. Judges are reading for a human being. The strongest submission I worked on this year opened with what the nominee did on a specific morning, then earned the metrics afterward. Numbers matter, and judges check them, but numbers arranged around a person beat numbers arranged around a press release.
The second way nominations lose is by answering the prompt like a deposition. The form asks for evidence of community involvement and the writer dutifully lists boards. A list of boards is a LinkedIn page. What a judge remembers is why the nominee joined the first one.
My rule when I draft these: write the profile a business journalist would file after shadowing the nominee for a week, then fit it to the form.
If you have someone worth nominating and a deadline coming, send me the rubric and a phone number. I’ll find the morning that wins it.