This year the Awards transitioned to using a new platform, Submittable, to accept and review the nominations. This transition was initiated based on nominator feedback, with the goal of creating a simpler and clearer process for nominators, including ease of use, ability to check the status of your nomination, and a messaging system to communicate with Leadership Awards team through the platform. Outlined below are some key improvements and tips about using Submittable:
1. You will be asked to login and verify your email. This ensures we have the correct email for you on file so you can receive our updates. Please note that the Submittable account should be associated with the nominator. If you already have a submittable account from a nomination or grant application you’ve done in the past, you should be able to use that same login.
2. Once logged in, the nominations form is all on a single page. You can see all the questions you will be asked, and your progress will automatically save as you go. If you prefer to work in a word document to write and edit, you may download the questions in a word document here. When you’re ready to submit, copy and paste into the Submittable form.
3. When drafting your nomination, you will now be able to use rich text formatting including bolding, italics, and bullet points, if that is useful to you. We recommend that not using the hyperlinks feature, as any linked materials will not be reviewed. For a fair and equitable review process, the selection committee will only read the text within the nomination and word counts.
4. After you submit, you will be able to log in at any time to see the status of your nomination. It will say that it is received and under review until August when finalists are selected and contacted. At this time, we will send you an email about the status of your nomination. The messaging correspondence was a priority feature to introduce based on nominator feedback. After you submit your nomination, you can see a copy of the confirmation email and other correspondence with the Awards team, and may also initiate an email to the Awards team. If you have questions prior to submitting, you can email us at hello@irvineawards.org.
Note that although you can name a second nominator on the form, only the person with the Submittable account who is submitting will see the correspondence and be contacted. The nominee will also not be contacted unless selected as a finalist.
5. If any questions arise during the nominations process, you are welcome to contact the Leadership Awards team. The Submittable support platform is also available to you to answer technical questions. For more information about the nominations process and platform, please see our FAQ.
Ready to nominate a leader? Please submit your nomination here.