Changemakers Innovation Award: Building a More Ethical Society
Criteria for Submitting, Rating, and Voting Competition Entries

Competition entries were required to address the criteria below. Voting ended on September 8 at midnight US Eastern time. Contest deadlines, procedures, and rules are described below.

The winners of the Changemakers Innovation Award for building a more ethical society will be those entries that best address the following criteria. (For competition entries submitted by individuals, please substitute "individual" for "organization" in the language below.)

Systemic Impact

• The organization has the potential to create systemic change at a national or regional level that fundamentally shapes a more ethical, morally courageous and empathetic society with the participation of young people and adults.

• The innovative model of the organization's strategy or operations shows promise of creating notable change in a country or region in the role that ethics plays in society.

Ethical Action

• The organization provides a real-life anecdote demonstrating how its ethical initiative has led (or might lead) to ethical action, behavior or awareness that represents a positive and welcome change.

Replication

• The model or key components of the model are being replicated, either by the organization or through other agencies, or a compelling case has been made for future replication.

• The model is compelling and the "how-tos" can be conveyed clearly to other organizations so the model will spread on its own merits.

• The organization believes in sharing the model openly and when possible assists others in understanding and implementing it.

Sustainability

• The organization and its model can achieve a significant degree of self-sustainability and are likely to be perpetuated over the long-term.

• A diversity of resources are used to sustain the model (e.g., in-kind support of volunteers or members; earned revenue; governmental partnerships; individual donors), and these resources strategically compliment the model, increasing its impact, efficiency, and replicability.

Innovation

• The organization uses an innovative strategic or operational model or applies established approaches in a nontraditional manner.

Contest Deadlines, Procedures, and Rules

The deadline for contest entries was noon on August 17, 2005 U.S. Eastern Time. Entrants could submit an updated version of their first entry based on questions and insights they received in the Changemakers.net discussion. Entries must be in English.

Financial Statement: To be eligible to win, ALL project teams/organizations (with the exception of local governments and universities) MUST enclose current income statement and balance sheet. These financial statements need not be audited. If you are an individual partnering with an organization to implement your work, then we require a copy of the partnering organization's income financial statement. If you are an individual without an organizational partner, you are exempt from the filing requirement. Purpose: These statements will be viewed only by members of a Changemakers screening panel for the sole purpose of establishing that the organization that submits a contest entry is a legitimate entity. They will be held in strictest confidence.

Entrants are encouraged to send photos that illustrate their idea to ethics@changemakers.net.

Prior to the start of voting, visitors to the Web site rated—from one to five stars—the contest entries. These ratings were not used to determine the finalists or competition winners.

A panel of judges selected the competition finalists. Online voting for the three winners from among the finalists ended on September 8. The three Changemakers Innovation Award winners will be announced on September 9. Organizations from any country may submit entries but they must be written in English to enter the competition.

For more information, contact ethics@changemakers.net.

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