Green Mountain Coffee and Ashoka’s Changemakers have launched the new competition called Relevance to Action: Your Place. Your Idea. Your Change. for organizations and individuals in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island or New York. The competition is looking for innovative ideas that inspire community action in Northeastern US. This can include fellow classmates supporting a local food bank, community-based action to address carbon footprint or a program to incentivize recycling. There are awards available up to $50,000.
The criteria for entries to make submissions include:
- Reflect the theme of the competition: Revelation to Action: Your Place. Your Idea. Your Change.
- Demonstrate groundbreaking solutions that inspire others to help make their community a better place to live.
- Indicate growth beyond the stage of idea, concept, or research. At a minimum, entries should be at the demonstration stage and indicate success. While we support new ideas at every stage and encourage their entry, the judges are better able to evaluate programs that are beyond the conceptual stage, and have demonstrated a proof of impact, even at small scale.
- Are submitted in English.
The ideas should demonstrate Changemakers’ assessment criteria of innovation, social impact and sustainability.
There are four main phases in the competition:
- Entry Stage, February 10 – April 21, 2010: Entries can be submitted until 5PM US EST on April 21, 2010, and throughout this stage anyone can participate in an online review discussion with the entrants.
- Online Review and Judging, April 22 – June 9, 2010: Online review and discussion continues. Simultaneously, a panel of expert judges and a team of Ashoka staff select the competition finalists. All decisions of the judges and Ashoka staff will be final.
- Voting, June 9 – June 30, 2010: The Changemakers community votes online to select the award-winners from the field of finalists.
- Competition Winners Announced, July 14, 2010: The 3 Changemakers competition winners – the finalist individuals or organizations that receive the most votes – will each receive a cash prize of USD $5000.
- State Winners Announced, July 14, 2010: The 7 Changemakers state winners – the best entry from each of the following states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York – will receive a cash prize of USD $5000.
The deadline to submit entries is 21 April 2010. For more information, visit this link.
