by Bright Ewuru | Jul 3, 2025 | Articles
It’s often necessary to recognise and celebrate excellence that transcends geographic limitations. Honouring accomplishments across borders is a good way to give all participants rare international visibility and networking opportunities. By bringing together diverse talent, audience and perspectives, global awards programs can facilitate cross-cultural inspiration and set higher benchmarks for excellence worldwide.
But recognising excellence at a global stage demands global understanding and accommodation. In the face of varying cultures, backgrounds, languages and experiences, inclusion ensures that no one is or feels left out.
Here are practical steps to create an inclusive awards experience for a global audience.
Breaking down language barriers is a good starting point. Participants shouldn’t be left out simply because they’re not fluent in a dominant language. Supporting multiple native languages demonstrates respect for different backgrounds and ensures clear communication, leading to more credible outcomes.
Your digital communication materials should be available in different languages. It’s important to use multilingual award management software. Award Force, for example, offers a fully multilingual system interface, making it easy for entrants, judges and other team members to navigate the platform in a familiar language.
We have more than 30 native translations available and are frequently adding to the list. More languages can also be made available by request!
You want your audience to fully engage with your awards program regardless of their ability, location or resources. Accessibility can level the playing field for all entrants to participate fairly while allowing judges and administrators to handle their responsibilities efficiently.
Award Force boasts an array of accessibility features that can promote inclusion in your awards program. Some of these functionalities are:
Affordability is another dimension of accessibility essential for an inclusive awards experience. You could waive entry fees, charge low prices or implement tiered pricing to prevent exclusion based on economic disadvantage. Sponsorships and other funding support can help entrants with a tight budget.
If you choose to charge entry fees, it’s necessary to remove logistical barriers that may exclude potential entrants.
Some applicants may not have access to major payment systems. Accepting payment in only a few major currencies can make entry frustrating for entrants in other regions, as they may have to deal with currency exchange, poor rates, hidden fees and delays.
Such international transactions may be prohibitive to potential entrants from developing regions, discouraging their participation.
With multicurrency software, such as Award Force, you can directly accept entry payments in any currency through different payment gateways. This will streamline payment for entrants who are unfamiliar with cross-border transactions or in underdeveloped regions.
True inclusion respects the differences and similarities between cultures. And it involves calculated efforts to respect other perspectives and not offend people from other cultures. Without cultural sensitivity, even well-meaning ideas can unintentionally offend or marginalise participants from diverse backgrounds.
One way, for example, to promote this type of sensitivity in Award Force is through careful field configuration, enabling award managers to design application forms with culturally appropriate terminology.
Competency training can help ensure your judges evaluate entries through an inclusive lens. Consider providing relevant and meaningful prizes to the winners. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, it’s helpful to find out what might hold value for entrants from different parts of the world.
With participants from all over the world, a dynamic evaluation process is essential to create an inclusive experience. You can achieve this by setting up a diverse judging panel. Representation on the judging table affirms that excellence wears many faces, assuring diverse entrants of authentic evaluation.
A holistic and adaptable evaluation method can help create a bias-free assessment structure. Award Force supports rubrics which employ different criteria for balanced assessment.
An inclusive awards program recognises that to judge fairly across borders, we must weigh the road taken, along with the result. Else, we risk praising privilege and overlooking perseverance.
Context-aware judging takes into account the peculiar challenges of entrants from different parts of the world. With Award Force, you can implement judging through detailed submissions that provide more information, weighted scoring and multi-chapter judging that ensures only judges familiar with local realities assess entries from that region.
Fostering inclusion ensures that the global audience of your international awards program feels seen and valued. Try implementing these tips to recognise and cater to your diverse audience fairly.
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