Rural Health Award Nomination Tips
This serves as a tool for you when developing a nomination for the Dakota Conference on Rural and Public Health Rural Health Awards.
Letters of Support
- Look for people who will be able to provide different perspectives on the person you are nominating. For example, a coworker, someone they volunteer with, and someone who supervises them.
- Share what makes the nominee unique. Do they always show up early or stay late? Do they go the extra mile to make someone's day? Share their strengths, talents and abilities; what YOU see that makes them a great nominee. Think diligence, punctuality, leadership, reliability, enthusiasm, creativity, independence, teamwork, organization, etc.
- Give examples. By compiling a list of reasons your nominee should be selected, you help build credibility and further demonstrate why the person is deserving of the award.
Nomination
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Read the award description and break it into pieces, then build your nomination around those items.
- For example: The Outstanding Rural Health Professional Award will be presented to a professional located in rural North Dakota, who has demonstrated leadership in the delivery of rural health services, and is unselfishly committed to making a significant and sustained impact on the health of their community and service area.
- How has this person demonstrated leadership in the delivery of rural health services?
- How has this person unselfishly committed themselves to making a significant impact?
- Give examples. By compiling a list of reasons your nominee should be selected, you help build credibility and further demonstrate why the person is deserving of the award.
- Think in threes. Using the above example of the nomination broken into pieces, think of three ways your nominee successfully executes each question. Then, use an example or two to further support what you are trying to say.
- Include an introduction. Again, you can think in threes; list three things (examples, traits, etc.) that make your nominee great. You can even provide an overview of what you will say in the body of your nomination.
- To end, reiterate what you've said. Reread what you've written. Summarize concisely or give an additional anecdote that brings everything together. Think of this as one last "punch" to getting your point across as to why your nominee should be selected.
Outline and Edit
Don't overthink things the first time. Make an outline of what you want to say (beginning, three points, end) and just write – get everything down. After, go back and edit yourself – it doesn't have to be perfect the first time – it just has to be down on paper! Once you get all your thoughts written, then go back and organize them.