Do you have a dedicated recognition strategy for stakeholders?

Whether you’re a nonprofit that works with donors or a small business with a loyal staff, recognition strategies generate powerful incentives that inspire action and retention. 

More importantly, recognition is personal. Awards allow stakeholders to treasure that recognition in the form of a keepsake. 

There’s also the logistics behind recognition strategies, like campaign scope, branding, award material selection, budgeting, coordination, and shipping. Take note of the following steps for your award strategy checklist.  

Define Your Recognition Campaign Scope

First, clarify your recognition campaign by defining your award benchmarks, categories, and tiers. 

Suppose you want to motivate and reward team performance during the holiday season. Use historical data and current annual growth to set competitive benchmarks. Set KPIs to analyze team performance. Create appropriate award categories and tiers based on your campaign data. 

You could create a top-tier award for the best-performing team of the entire holiday season. Mid-tier awards could be specific to a certain month. A third-tier award could be designated for the most store membership sign-ups or customer service. 

Browsing platforms like Awards.com can inspire even more category ideas for custom awards and trophies. For example, the Rosina Star Award comes in three different sizes, ideal for multi-tiered award campaigns.        

Branding Alignment

Make sure your awards reflect your company’s brand. Custom award platforms allow buyers to print logos and taglines. Find awards that align with your company’s brand colors.

Upload high-resolution vector images of your logo. Scaling vectors to any size will result in crisper images, while JPEGs may come out blurry or pixelated. 

Choose fonts that align with your company’s brand style guide. If it’s Helvetica, use Helvetica. 

Selecting Materials for Awards

Custom awards come in a range of materials, with acrylic being a popular and budget-friendly choice. There are also sophisticated wooden plaques, glass awards, and metal and stone-crafted options. Awards come in varying shapes and designs, including:

• Rocks and gemstones
• Bowls and vases
• Glass objects (i.e., apples for teachers of the year)
• Diamonds 
• Circles and globes
• Pyramid
• Obelisks
• Animals (i.e., eagles)

Choose materials that best suit the occasion. Glass awards are well-suited for formal corporate galas, whereas acrylic awards may be more suitable as “welcome” trophies for new employees during onboarding week. Wooden plaques are good for celebrating career milestones and retirements. 

Awards shaped like animals and globes are particularly suited for donor award campaigns for environmental causes, animal shelters, and humanitarian nonprofits. 

Likewise, the engraving method should suit the award type. Use a sophisticated engraving for a glass donor gala award and a simpler font for an onboarding trophy. 

Budgeting for Award Campaigns

Clarify your budget during the campaign development phase, including proper allocation for the awards themselves. Work with a custom awards platform to understand pricing. Ask if final prices include personalization, proofs, shipping, and other setup fees.  

Order at least 5% to 10% more awards than the expected amount, depending on the campaign. For example, if you’re custom-ordering acrylic trophies for an onboarding campaign, you’ll need to account for late hires. You may have an influx of new donors to your nonprofit or a surprise fundraising spike that demands immediate recognition.  

Ordering additional awards is extra insurance, in case any recipients were accidentally left off a list or awards are damaged in transit. 

Coordination Logistics

Once you’ve approved the award proof with the supplier, the awards immediately go into production. Go over every detail with a fine-toothed comb before approval to ensure there are no mistakes in names, grammar, or titles.  

Order your awards at least 4 to 6 weeks before the event. Production times vary, but depending on the order size and engraving needs, production could take up to 3 weeks. Shipping adds more time, including the possibility of shipping delays. 

Make sure someone is available to sign for the awards shipment. Check the shipment for damages or engraving errors right away, giving you proper time to contact the supplier. Awards should be properly repackaged and stored in a cool, dry area. 

Don’t wait until the last minute to customize awards. You’re more prone to making mistakes. Once your awards are in production, it’s harder to fix mistakes. Plus, you may have to pay more. 

Customize Awards that Inspire Performance

Let donors know you truly appreciate their support. Celebrate your employees’ hard work with awards that symbolize their success. By making physical awards a cornerstone of your recognition strategy, your company or cause will always maintain a memorable role in the lives of your stakeholders.