Outstanding County Program Awards

The Board of Directors approved the creation of the Outstanding County Program Awards in 1991 as a way to recognize innovative programs that other counties might want to emulate. The awards were recommended by the 1989-90 Future Committee as a way to honor good ideas and share them with other counties. The Outstanding County Program Awards honor counties and groups of counties, not individuals, for their support of excellence.

The intent of the Outstanding County Program Awards is to recognize and share information with other counties about programs that involve a uniquely innovative process, solution or idea to address a county or multi-jurisdictional issue and/or to prevent a future problem from developing. Entries involving multi-jurisdictional collaboration are strongly encouraged to apply. Programs submitted for Ketner Productivity Awards also may be submitted for this program but the focus is more directly on innovation and multi-county collaboration and, while productivity is encouraged, it is not the major factor in determining winners. The team of judges will select three winning programs in each of three categories: General Government, Human Services and Public Information/Participation.

County or multi-county recipients of the Outstanding County Program Awards will receive a beautiful, framed certificate. The winning programs will be featured in an issue of CountyLines. The certificate presentations will be made at the winning counties’ board meetings prior to or during National County Government Week, April 6-12, 2008.

The application deadline for the 2007 Outstanding County Program Awards competition ended Feb. 1. Thank you to counties that submitted entries. Winners will be notified after judges' committees meet in March.

Categories

Three winners will be picked in each of three categories:

General Government — includes programs related to environmental protection, economic development, libraries, arts, parks and recreation, human/race relations, and general county administrative services.

Human Services — includes programs related to social services, health, mental health and other programs to aid the elderly, disabled, low-income, youth, etc.

Public Information/Participation — includes any program that informs and/or seeks to involve citizens related to county programs or services. Can be audience specific (news media, civic groups, youth, etc.) or the general citizenry.

Awards Criteria

The major criteria for the Outstanding County Program Awards are:

• Innovation: How unique is the project or program? What makes it different from others like it?
• Success: What were the objectives? How well were they met? How widespread is the impact of the project or program? What is the anticipated long-term impact?
• Effort and Difficulty: How well did the project or program use available resources, given the limitations on such resources? What obstacles or challenges had to be overcome and how was this done?
• Collaboration: How did the project involve collaboration with other agencies, jurisdictions, non-profits, businesses, etc.? How well was this collaboration achieved?