Submissions are open through July for the third annual .ORG Impact Awards by the Public Interest Registry (PIR). Nominations will be reviewed by judges who are leaders in the internet, nonprofit and marketing sectors. All nominations must be tied to an active website with a .org domain name.
Winners will be announced during a virtual celebration on Nov. 9. Category winners will receive $10,000 each. The winner of the .ORG of the Year award will receive a donation of $35,000.
“Every day, the global .ORG community devotes itself to meeting society’s most pressing needs,” said Jon Nevett, president of Reston, Va.-based PIR. “These mission-driven and community-based organizations are tackling everything from promoting health and healing during the pandemic to addressing global climate change and fighting hunger and poverty. It’s our honor to recognize them.”
More than 500 organizations from around the world submitted entries last year. This year’s awards include updated categories and increased award values. Categories for 2021 include:
- Health and Healing in a Period of Pandemic
- Overcoming Climate Change
- Championing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
- Fighting Hunger and Poverty
- Providing Quality Education for All
- Building Better Communities
- .ORG Rising Stars
- .ORG of the Year
The top five entries per category will be named finalists on Sept. 14. This year’s awards include updated categories and increased award values.
The 2020 .Org of the Year was Days for Girls International, for its efforts to eradicate menstrual poverty around the globe. The 13-year-old nonprofit also took home the Combating Coronavirus award, reaching more than 1.8 million women and girls in 144 countries on six continents.
Other award winners in 2020 were Change Labs in the category of Championing Equity, Equality and Inclusion; SMASH, which won the Promoting Education award for its work to empower students of color with intensive science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) coursework; and, Crisis Tracker, which won the Innovation Award for its community-based project developing a geospatial database and reporting tool to track and analyze armed group activity and conflict-related incidents in remote origins of Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
