PoleStar Social Impact Awards 2018 – Online submissions close by 23rd July 2018

You’ve been impacting lives positively. 

Now here’s an award that will impact your organisation.

Over the last 19 years Polestar Foundation has been recognizing and rewarding outstanding talent among Indian media professionals through the Polestar Awards. Last year, the POLESTAR FOUNDATION introduced a new category of awards for Social Impact to recognize and celebrate excellence in social development initiatives. Exemplary efforts and activities in the fronts of Education, Livelihood, Health and Empowerment are awarded in this category. We have pleasure to invite nominations for this year and the last date to submit your nomination is 23rd July, 2018. Please visit our website http://www.polestar-foundation.org/ for downloading the nomination form.

The spirit of the award is built around 3Cs – Celebrate, Connect and Catalyze

 

Celebrate

The Award is to celebrate holistic human development through projects that are sustainable and capable of scaling quickly to impact a larger population.

 

Connect

We aim to use this initiative to connect with committed social impact organisations that are transforming lives across the country through their programs.

 

Catalyze

Through the Polestar Award we hope to inspire and accelerate outstanding initiatives to go further and do more in their fields of expertise.

Important dates

Your online submission form should reach us by June 23rd, 2018

 

Who can apply?

Submissions are invited from the NGOs to recognise outstanding work in the areas of Education, Livelihood, Health and Empowerment.

The competition is wide open to ALL who are registered either as a Non-Government Organization under

1. Societies Registration Act or,

2. Trust Act or

with at least 3 years experience in running the project / program.

Evaluation criteria

The following are the criteria on which your program will be judged:

1. Innovation: Original ideas either in the planning, implementation, delivery or outcome of your programs will be given importance. (For example, a unique irrigation method that uses less resources and results in better yield and more profits for the farmer.)

2. Replication: Can your program model be easily replicated irrespective of where it is implemented? Simplicity and minimal social and practical barriers to adoption are key determining factors. (For example, a successful approach to empowering one community that can be replicated for another without much change).

3. Scalability: Small programs that can effortlessly be scaled up to help a greater number of people. (For example, creating awareness about a preventable disease that has been easily scaled up through intelligent use of technology reaching more people quickly.)

4. Sustainability: Lesser dependence on grants and funds and having a successful strategy in-build in the program itself to self generate income. (For example, training people and then using them to train others for a fee thus reducing dependence on outside funding).

5. Community involvement: To what extent is the program involving the cross section of the community without any discrimination, to grow the program? (For example, absorbing school drop outs into a program and using them productively to prevent them from succumbing to alcohol or drug abuse).

6. Leadership and Governance : Strong leadership in the organization backed by

7. Process-driven  governance of the program ( Experienced leaders, staff members performing their work through proper documentation and reporting of  activities, results, meetings and complying with all statutory and standard accounting procedures).

If you’ve been able to achieve qualitative benefits through a few or all of the above criteria and are able to provide quantifiable data to support the impact then you stand a good chance of winning the award.

Jury

Submissions will be judged by an eminent jury through a transparent and unbiased process that will also include on-site field verification of shortlisted programs.

The Award

Winners in each of the four categories of the prestigious PoleStar Social Impact Award will receive a Citation, a Trophy and Rs.1 lakh in prize money.