Special Awards

Special awards are a way to recognize more students at a contest. They also provide opportunities for collaboration with partner organizations and a modest amount of income for your program. Special awards do require time to solicit, develop, and maintain. This can be a good task for the Advisory Committee. 

Finding Special Award Sponsors

You may find allies to sponsor special awards in a variety of organizations or individuals:

• Historical organizations or museums have shared goals of increasing interest in history

• Libraries, especially those who are interested in engaging more with students

• Public television stations, especially those with strong history programming

• Colleges or universities may be interested in cultivating relationships with potential students

• Affinity groups, like Kiwanis Club, Rotary, Civil War, labor history, sports, women's groups, etc.

• Program donors, who support your work overall, may want to sponsor a special award as part of a larger donation

Some Affiliates, and the National Contest, require special award sponsors require an additional fee (beyond the cost of the award itself) to the sponsoring organization. This fee is in recognition of the additional work that your organization will do to administer the prize, as well as the work you have done throughout the year to support students and get them to the contest. 

Determining Special Award Parameters

How many prizes will they sponsor? Most traditionally, sponsors give one prize in the Junior Division and one in the Senior Division. Asking students to compete across divisions - younger students competing against older students - may create inequities in the judging process. If the organization only wants to award one prize, consider limited it to either the Junior or Senior Division.

What projects are eligible? Award sponsors often set parameters on their prize based on the interests of their organization and the content of the student project - e.g. sports history, local history, women's history, etc. Students whose projects are within this content area are eligible for the award. If you already have existing special awards, you may need to work with the sponsor to find a content area that doesn't overlap with other prizes. 

Some prizes are limited to students who have used a specific resource - e.g., Best Use of the Minnesota Historical Society Archives sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society, or Use of Chronicling America sponsored by the Library of Congress. In these cases, students may need to submit additional documentation, such as an annotated bibliography or statement, to show how they used that resource. 

Some prizes are limited to a certain category based on the interests of the sponsoring organization - e.g., Paper on Minnesota History sponsored by the Minnesota History Magazine, or Outstanding Documentary on Minnesota History sponsored by Twin Cities Public Television.

What is the prize? When possible, prizes should be more than just a certificate. Prizes can be monetary, tangible items like books, memberships, or in-kind donations like access to special tours or events, such as the ability to present at an organization's meeting. For monetary prizes, you will need to consider if the dollars are per student, or per entry to be shared. 

Samples from Affiliates: In thinking about what might be possible for your program, it may be useful to get ideas from others!

Nominating Entries and Selecting Winners for Special Awards

Nominations: Students usually nominate their entry for special awards as part of their registration process. Coordinators usually provide guidance or set limits on how many prizes for which a student can nominate their entry. Additionally, some events allow first-round judge panels to nominate projects for special awards. 

Selecting Winners: There are a few ways to select winners for the special awards. 

• You can require the prize sponsors to attend the contest and pick the winners. If you go this route, it is helpful for the sponsors if you create a schedule for them so that they can see the entries that qualify. This is workable if you have one or two prizes. Beyond that, creating schedules that work for several sponsors becomes increasingly more difficult, if not impossible, with each additional prize. In creating a schedule, you may need to winnow down the number of entries a judge panel will see. Considering that they will likely need to move around your event venue, seeing more than 8-10 projects is impossible. 

• You can create a special panel of judges who are not from the sponsoring organization to judge the special awards. You would need to create a special schedule for those prize judges, taking into account the factors listed above about winnowing down the number of entries the team could see. 

• You can use contest results to award the prize to the entry that ranks highest in the competition, or ranks highest without advancing to the next level of competition. This approach requires waiting until final rankings are known, so allow enough time for this process to be completed and definitely assign it to a special team.

Samples Tools from Affiliates

• Minnesota History Day uses an independent judge panel to review projects for each prize. All Topical Prize judges attend a separate orientation that runs at the same time as the regular judge orientation. Prize specific schedules are created for each judge team and judges view projects WITHOUT interviews, and sometimes without the students present. Coordinators winnow down the number of entries for each prize, if the number of entries nominated exceeds what a judge team can review. Judges use a generic Topical Prize rubric to assess the quality of projects and select winners. 

  • Topical Prize Rubric

  • Sample Topical Prize Judge Schedule

• Washington State History Day has students nominate their entries for special awards. Entries are viewed and winners selected by either the sponsoring organization of a small committee of program volunteers. 

  • View more information about the awards and process in Washington

• Process for National Contest special award distribution

Distributing Awards

At the Awards Ceremony: Invite the special award sponsor to be a part of the presentation of awards at the ceremony. Special prizes can be a great way to promote the program if the sponsor will open his/her network.  In the interest of time, it's often best to NOT have the sponsor announce the winner, and rather ask them to greet the student on stage, hand out the medal/packet, and take a photo with the winner. If the student(s) are getting a physical prize (book, certificate) the sponsor can hand those materials out at the ceremony.

• Minnesota History Day Topical Prize Winner's Packet

Payment/Distribution: You will need to decide with the awards sponsor how to process the payment of any monetary prizes. Will you cut the check or will they? If the students are required to submit any personal financial information (like a W9), you may want to control the payment to ensure the privacy of student information. By invoicing the sponsors in advance and controlling the payment, you can also ensure that all winners are paid in a timely manner.

Follow-up with Sponsors

After the contest, as part of your communication to prize sponsors, you will want to let them know who won their prize. Student Privacy: In the information about special prizes that you give to students, be sure to tell them how their information will be used and shared. Let them know if their name, school, project, and/or contact information will be shared with prize sponsors. 

Frequently Asked Questions about Special Awards

How many special awards are too many? There are a few factors that go into this answer. First, what is your capacity to manage recruiting, creating schedules, judging, and processing awards? Second, how are you administering the judging of special awards? Are you using the highest ranking without advancing, having separate panels of judges review projects, or some other method? In the end, remember it's harder to "get rid of" awards than it is to add them, so add them gradually and evaluate how you're feeling.

Does the judging of special awards impact contest judging? No. A student's rank in the contest SHOULD NOT be impacted by any special awards they win or don't win. A student's selection as a special award winner MAY be impacted by their rank. Some contests use contest rank to help select special award winners. Generally, contest coordinator prefer to "spread the wealth" and to offer special awards to those entries who are NOT advancing to nationals.

Do special award judges need to be at interviews? If you are having a separate panel of judges review entries for special awards, they often enjoy hearing the students talk during interviews, but this can pose logistical and fairness problems. It is much easier to have a special awards judge view projects without students (exhibits, papers, websites) or ask them to only view the project (documentaries, performances). Judges often feel a stronger connection to a project if they have interviewed the student, which could give students an unfair advantage if the judge is not interviewing everyone. Whatever you decide, be explicit with special awards judges on if they should or should not talk to the students. 

What if the judges want to give the prize to an entry that is already going to nationals? Even if you prefer to spread the wealth  and give a special award to an entry that is already going to nationals, a judge or awards sponsor may disagree. It's your call on how hard to push the rule. If it's an awards sponsor who is judging, you may want to let is slide and maintain the relationship.