2015 Facilitation Impact Awards

Purpose

The overall purpose of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Facilitation Impact Awards initiative is to:

• Promote the awareness of the role of facilitation in achieving positive, impactful results;
• Reward the use of facilitation within organisations, communities, and society in general;
• Recognize excellence in facilitation practices;
• Provide evidence of the power of facilitation;
• Acknowledge outstanding contributions by IAF members and other facilitators; and
• Promote IAF, IAF membership, and IAF conferences as vehicles for advancing the profession of facilitation.

Non-Competitive

In keeping with the spirit of the International Association of Facilitators, the Facilitation Impact Awards is a non-competitive, inclusive awards program. All submissions meeting a given threshold of points receive an award at one of three levels: platinum, gold or silver.

Eligibility

Any for-profit, not-for-profit, or government organization that meets the following conditions is eligible:

• At least one facilitation activity related to the submission must have taken place within the 24 months immediately prior to the submission deadline; and
• The submitting organization must be a legally recognized entity under the laws of the respective country.

For each successful submission, an organization and its primary facilitator are recognized. Facilitators could be internal or external to the organization.

Submission Evaluation Areas

Applicants completed a submission form which included five core questions for evaluation:
1. Organisational benefits

• Defined organisational goals that were impacted
• The activity’s tangible benefits that can be quantified and how they relate to the organisation’s goals
• The activity’s intangible benefits that can be quantified and how they relate to the organisation’s goals
• The breadth of the impact of the activity (e.g., the percentage of the organisation impacted)

2. Facilitation utilization

• The degree to which the facilitation was integral to the success of the project
• An approximation of facilitation hours as a % of hours of assistance provided

3. Quality facilitation

• The extent to which the facilitation aligned with IAF’s six core facilitator competencies and 18 sub-competencies

4. Culture of collaboration

• The degree to which the organisation has integrated collaborative processes broadly into its culture, involves employees and stakeholders, and has skilled resources in the organisation

5. Professional standing

• Significant involvement of one or more facilitators who have professional standing as a member of the International Association of Facilitators and/or as a Certified Professional Facilitator.

Evaluation

Three evaluators independently reviewed each application and scored each section based on a weighted-criteria design. When significant scoring discrepancies occurred, the three evaluators were encouraged to discuss their findings and make adjustments in their individual scoring, as desired. The final score is an average of the three evaluations.  Submissions were awarded based on achieving the following scores.

• Platinum Award 90-100 points

• Gold Award 80-89 points

• Silver Award 70-79 points

Receiving or not receiving an award is often a matter of the submission’s comprehensiveness and its ability to show how the components of the project are aligned with the judging criteria.  There is a possibility that many excellent and impactful projects have not been awarded FIAs due to this lack of submission content comprehensiveness and criteria alignment.  Unfortunately evaluators can only use what is submitted to make decisions.

Additional information about the application process, submission guidelines, evaluation methodology, and governance policy can be found at www.iaf-fia.org.