Client case study Cost effective and community pleasing Bell Awards moves to Award Force, netting flexibility and happy judges Reviewer:Debbie Roberson,Executive Director, Spirit of Louisville Foundation Reviewer: Debbie Roberson,Executive Director, Spirit of Louisville Foundation Fast facts about WLKY Bell Awards Industry: Community awards Location: Louisville, Kentucky, USA Award Force client: Client since 2024 Employees: 0-50 employees Watch the video Listen to Debbie Roberson talk about her switch to Award Force https://vimeo.com/1116693279?share=copy#t=0Video can't be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Award Force case study: Bell Awards (https://vimeo.com/1116693279?share=copy#t=0) Background Celebrating unsung heroes 2024 WLKY Bell Award recipients. Since 1978, the WLKY Spirit of Louisville Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organisation in Louisville, Kentucky, has brought awareness to the outstanding efforts of volunteers in their community who have devoted themselves to help improve the lives of others. “This is an awards presentation that honors local volunteers in our community who are doing some outstanding things to help underserved, underprivileged people,” Roberson said. “We have a big award celebration that brings hundreds of people together. It’s a very prestigious award. We’ve done this for 48 years and it has become known as the local Emmy Award for volunteerism in our community.” About the awards A nomination process that seeks outstanding volunteerism The Bell Awards asks for nominees who live in the metro Louisville region who are working to improve their community through volunteer work. The awards program includes two categories: the Adult Bell Award Recipient, which is awarded to ten individuals each year, and a Youth Servce Honor award, which goes to two junior or senior high school students each year. The WLKY Spirit of Louisville Foundation Board of Trustees selects the recipients based on the information provided in their nomination form, and considers the average number of hours volunteered, the diversity of the nominee’s volunteer activities and how the nominee stands out as an outstanding volunteer. Program challenges before Award Force Goodbye expensive, inflexible application. Hello, customisable Award Force. Before using Award Force, the Bell Awards used Submittable. “It was a good program, but it had a lot of limitations,” Roberson said. “The form was basically already set, and I didn’t have a lot of flexibility or latitude with changing the questions we could ask and the different types of information that we wanted.” “And before that, we were doing everything manually, actually mailing out nomination forms and getting them back in the mail, which of course became very archaic.” Award Force has been a cost-effective move for the Bell Awards. “It is one-fourth the cost of our previous platform,” Roberson said. “That’s really fantastic.” Previous system Inflexible online system Manual processes Challenging system of collecting information Expensive Award Force Affordable, online system User-friendly nomination Flexible form builder User-friendly judging The Award Force choice A flexible, centralised platform with super helpful support I received nothing but wonderful, glowing remarks about Award Force this year—reading the nominations, assigning them, getting them sent out, and getting signed onto the platform. I didn’t receive one negative comment… You can’t get much better than that.” The Bell Awards annual program is made up of 32 community and corporate leaders in Louisville, Kentucky. “They do it on a volunteer basis, so they’re very, very busy people and they’re donating their time to help us with this award. And I received nothing but wonderful, glowing remarks about Award Force this year—reading the nominations, assigning them, getting them sent out, and getting signed onto the platform. I didn’t receive one negative comment. And that’s with 32 people. You can’t get much better than that. They said, ‘This is a great platform and we love it.'” Favourite features Powerful program configuration that is flexible and easy to use A flexible nomination form “One of the best benefits we’ve experienced in switching to Award Force this past year was the flexibility. It allowed me to set my own criteria, set my own questions. Our board was able to weigh in on the type of questions and information they wanted to see when they were reading the nominations,” Roberson said. “We were able to create a nomination form to suit our exact needs. We didn’t have to try to fit into a mold that was already there. We were able to make our own mold, and that was really good.” If I had a question, I always heard from somebody immediately. Our primary point of contact was Jeremy, and he was absolutely phenomenal.” Fast, helpful support The level of responsiveness from the Award Force support team “is amazing,” Roberson said. “If I had had a question, I always heard from somebody immediately. Our primary point of contact was Jeremy, and he was absolutely phenomenal.” “I don’t mind telling you I was nervous switching over to a new platform. Would I be able to adapt to it? Would I be able to catch on to it, learn it?” “And [Jeremy] just walked me through step by step. Everything, every question I ever had, if I needed to follow up with an email, I always got a response back. That was always very, very impressive.” The Award Force results Customisable forms Happy community Helpful support Cost effective Read more testimonials