Paper Trail
Win-Win Situation
By Jim Abbott
Questions have come up recently about the NAA Foundation’s various awards programs. Let me clarify things for you.
The NAA Foundation will not present program excellence or content awards in the calendar year 2007. But that does not mean you will miss the opportunity to share your outstanding work with the other professionals in the field.
The next round of program excellence and content awards will be given at the second NAA Foundation Young Reader Conference, scheduled for May 15-18, 2008, in Phoenix. You will be able to enter any program, project or content created between July 2006 and January 2008. The awards banquet will take place on Saturday, May 16, 2008.
It may seem like 2008 is a long way off, but the time to start planning your entry is now. We will award honors in four categories: general excellence for NIE programs; general excellence for YEA and scholastic journalism programs; YEA content; and NIE content. The guidelines for each will be much the same as they have been in the past.
Those who have won awards offer this advice: Start early – very early. Keep a file in a nearby drawer or even a box under your desk where you can store a copy of all the good things you do. Save letters you receive from students, parents, sponsors and the community. Retain tear sheets of in-paper features. And most important, keep records of goals and results.
The single most important key to winning these awards is the documentation of goals and outcomes. Goals need to be set before any program begins, whether it’s NIE or youth content. Make sure the judges will understand how goals were set and who was involved in setting those goals. Part of the goal statement should be a method to evaluate how well you met the goals. Not meeting a goal is not necessarily a sign of failure. It is a step toward improving your project for the next time. We all learn from our mistakes – or we should.
There is a simple formula for writing a measurable goal: As the result of (what), (something) will happen as measured by (measurement) to the level of (success measure). Here’s an example: As a result of this Paper Trail column, 75 YEA, scholastic journalism and/or NIE professionals will enter the 2008 program excellence competition as measured by the contest entry log maintained by the NAA Foundation. That describes who is going to do something, and how that is going to be measured.
What can be measured? Everything! You may need to be creative, but it can be done. You may want to measure increases to the size of your youth staff, the addition of content to a Web site, entries in a newspaper-sponsored contest, scores on a test, letters to the editor, or something else.
Does failure to meet the goal indicate a non-winning entry? Not at all. If your idea was creative, you set and measured goals and can use the information to help you do better, then that is really a success.
Compiling an entry takes time, and we know that. Some of the best programs in the country are never entered because people are just too busy.
A note on judges: You will be judged by a jury of your peers. When the time comes, we will have an open call for judges, and anyone may apply. Judges are selected based on the following: experience in the field; winning other NAA Foundation awards; participation in state, regional or national conferences and events; and availability to come to Washington, D.C., for judging on a specific weekend.
The NAA Foundation staff has no role in the selection of contest winners. These are not our awards. They are awards from the entire community of NIE, YEA and scholastic journalism professionals.
Watch the e-forums for information on entry forms and deadlines. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Good luck!
NAA Foundation Vice President Jim Abbott can be reached at (571) 366-1006 or james.abbott@naa.org
