Skagit Women’s Alliance and Network
Business and Professional Woman of the Year
The Nomination and Judging Process: How it Works
The public process for seeking nominations for the current years’ Business and Professional Woman of the Year begins in May with sending the nomination form to the data base of SWAN’s supporters. Additionally, our sponsor The Skagit Valley Herald prints an advertisement for SWAN seeking public nominations. The advertisement runs numerous times in the daily Skagit Valley Herald and also their weekly publications The Anacortes American and The Courier Times and their monthly magazine The Business Pulse.
SWAN Board members make presentations to various groups and organizations to spread the word as well as e-mailing the nomination form to still other distribution lists of organizations they may be a part of. Additional press releases are sent to local radio stations.
Anyone can nominate a woman to be part of the process—and women may self-nominate themselves. The criteria is four-fold: A woman must live or work in Skagit County, demonstrate excellence in her work, actively promote professionalism of women in business and make outstanding contributions to her community.
The deadline for receipt of nominations is June 30.
Right after the closing date, an application form is sent to all nominated candidates. The application asks the candidate to respond to three questions which are open ended. The woman can write as much or little as she chooses. More in this case is better so the evaluators can see the whole woman and her contributions. A resume is also encouraged. Sometimes it is hard for a woman to really toot her own horn and the committee responsible for this part of the process ends up calling individuals who have not responded to encourage them to complete the application and send it in. The applications also have a due date however generous time is given to allow time to develop the response and submit the application.
The current year’s SWAN Board individually carefully reads and reviews each application and completes an application evaluation. The criteria which are rated on a scale of 1 to 10 is this: demonstrates excellence/success in chosen profession; promotes professionalism in women in business; and contributions to Skagit County in the area of community service. The awards committee tallies each board members’ rating of each candidate into a matrix. From this matrix scoring, the top candidates emerge. If there are ties in the accumulative scoring number, those candidates are discussed amongst the full board and the top five candidates are voted on for final selection.
Five judges from the business community are selected to interview and rate the five finalists. Care is given to select judges based geographic representation in the county as well as diverse business and community success. The judges are provided the finalist’s original application to review and then come together at the SWAN Judging and Social in late September—generally speaking one month out from the Business and Professional Woman of the Year Banquet. The judges are provided 10 questions from which they agree to ask five—the same five questions will be asked of each finalist. One by one the finalists go to a separate room to meet with the judges for their 20 minutes interview. After all five women have been interviewed; the judges deliberate their observations and agree on one candidate as the Woman of the Year. The President of the SWAN Board is told the selection. All agree to keep the selection confidential.
And so the preparations for the banquet and unveiling of the Business and Professional Woman of the Year continue.
