GAIN Power Eligibility, Entry, Fees, Voting Rules

What are the IDEA awards?

The Powerful IDEA Awards are GAIN POWER’s progressive politics movement awards to celebrate, elevate and honor powerful people and programs impacting our democracy, elections, and advocacy.

We will honor bold, brave, creative, political professionals, activists, and all types of changemakers for candidate, party, issue, and voter education campaigns, and advocacy organizations. We aim to elevate and shine a spotlight on workers and programs that focus on engaging and promoting democracy through running for office, organizing, elections, civic engagement, participatory events, and public communications.

We are the only awards program dedicated exclusively to the people and organizations that power progressive politics. The Progressive and Democratic infrastructure is made up of different sectors including: party and political action committees, candidate and ballot measure campaigns, nonprofit education, member and advocacy organizations, consulting firms, and policy makers, elected leaders and their staff in government. This year’s program recognizes those who worked in the 2022 election cycle.

The IDEA awards are open to all those in Democratic and Progressive politics.

Our awards fall into five categories:

Transformational Talent and Leadership: Recognizing inspirational people who do the work to impact our democracy, elections, and advocacy. These include the candidates, campaign and organizational staff, and dedicated artists and activists.
Inspirational Organizations and Campaigns: Recognizing organizations from nonprofit educational and advocacy campaigns, party committees, political action committees, and social impact companies that are dedicated to protecting our democracy, running electoral and legislative issue campaigns, voter education, and, of course, electing leaders who share our values.
Powerful Programs: Recognizing critical program events run by formal and informal, organized and organic collectives and coalitions and owned by single individuals and organizations.
Creative Communications and Content: Recognizing creative communication or pieces of content using video, print, digital, audio, and other media for the purposes of communicating with members, voters, donors, or activists.
Transformative Technology: Recognizing the technology built to organize, mobilize, fundraise, and communicate with members, voters, donors, or activists.

Eligibility

Who is eligible to be nominated:

Anyone who worked for or volunteered for Democratic or Progressive candidate or ballot measure campaigns directly or indirectly in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked at a progressive non-profit organization, 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked at a progressive PAC in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked for one of the Democratic party committees including federal, state, and local.
Anyone who worked for a state legislative caucus in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who volunteered for any of the above entities in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked at a consulting firm that had any of the above entities as clients in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked in a elected leader or policy makers office.
Donors to any of the entities.
You can nominate others or yourself.

Who is eligible to vote:

All who are eligible to nominate are eligible to vote.

Deadlines and Timelines

Entrees Open: January 2nd, 2023
Regular Entry Close: February 28th, 2023.
Late Entries: March 1-March 15 when review begins. We may accept some tries through March 31 but can not guarantee they’ll be included in full voting period.
GAIN Power Review of Submissions: March 15th-April 3, 2023
Public Voting April 10-May 15, 2023
Judge review voting May 12-May 24th, 2023
Award Winners Announced at Event in June 6th 2023

Schedule was updated on February 27, 2023.

How much does it cost to enter?

For all categories in the Transformational Talent and Leadership, entries will be free.

For all other categories, we will be charging similar to other awards. Waivers will be available for other entries on a case-by-case basis, including the ability to pay. Costs for these entries will be as follows:

Early Entry (January 2nd – January 15th): $75 per submission
Regular Entry (January 16th – February 28th): $100 per submission up to 10 submissions, $75 for subsequent submissions
Late Entry (February 28th-April 30th): $150 per submission. Note: since judging will have started, there is no guarantee a late entry will be seen as much as a regular entry.

Note: refunds will not be available for any submissions unless there is a substantial change or cancellation to the category submitted. If you would like to apply for a waiver, please email awards@gainpower.org with your name, entry information, and context.

Rules and Regulations

Entry Submissions

Entries will be submitted through the IDEA awards platform (Awards Force). This will require the creation of an account on the platform, filling out submission(s) with all required fields, and the completion of submitting within the platform before the conclusion of the nomination period. Submitters are allowed to nominate other individuals, content created by other persons or companies, and/or entities with which the submitter is not associated. In those cases, the submitter will be asked to provide contact information for the nominated individual or entity. Any individual or company nominated by someone else will not be considered opted-in until they have been contacted by GAIN Power regarding their nomination and have consented to have the nomination proceed.

GAIN Power reserves the right to move submissions if entered in the wrong category, or cancel submissions if it feels that they are inappropriate for the IDEA awards. GAIN Power will contact nominators when this happens.

General Rules

By nominating yourself or your company or your own content, you release GAIN Power, its members, officers, directors, employees, and agents from any liability whatsoever, and waive any and all causes of action, related to any claims, costs, injuries, losses, or damages of any kind arising out of, or in connection with, the Awards (including without limitation claims, costs, injuries, losses and damages related to personal injuries, damage to or destruction of property, rights of publicity or privacy, defamation or portrayal in a false light, whether intentional or unintentional, whether under a theory of contract, tort (including negligence), warranty or any other theory.

By nominating yourself or your company or your own content, you hereby agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless GAIN Power and its members, officers, directors, agents, and employees, from all damages, liabilities, claims, and expenses, including without limitation attorneys’ fees and costs, arising from any breach of these Rules by you, or from or based any action or inaction by you in connection with an Entry to the Awards.

By nominating yourself or your company or your own content, you hereby grant to GAIN Power the right to use, display and disseminate your name and likeness, and/or that of your company, and/or the content submitted, as applicable, for purposes of publicizing and promoting the Awards and administering the Awards program, in any media, throughout the world, without compensation, and without further permission.

a. Multiple Categories

Entrants may submit to more than one category if they feel it appropriate. If entering more than one category that requires a fee, there will be a separate fee per each category.

Judging Process

Voting will occur from March 15th – May 15th, 2023. The vast majority of submissions will be posted to the awards platform in a way where the public may vote on the submissions. Our system will count votes and rank entries which will help determine the award. For some categories, GAIN Power may rely on the expertise of select members of the progressive political community to rate and judge entries.

GAIN Power will conduct a final review of submissions before public voting and judging February 15th – March 15th to check for duplicative nominations, and may rely on judges and staff to narrow entries in some categories before public voting to make public voting easier.

How to Enter

Log into GAIN Power’s IDEA Awards Platform. You will need to register separately for this system, as it will not have your GAIN Power login information. Please enter all required information while registering.
After logging in, you will see a button to “Start Entry”. Click there to create a new nomination entry. You will also see “My Entries” where you can view all your entries.
Select which category you want to nominate in by using the dropdowns in categories to find your category.
1. Fill in your entry to the best of your ability. If you are nominating someone else, please be careful to check that you are nominating the right person.
2. Some categories, mostly with communications that require upload and description, will have multiple screens where you can save parts of a submission and go to the next screen to upload. Be careful to make sure to fill out all required content. Some content may not be required for some entries but will be required for others.
3. Once you complete the entry, click “Submit Entry”.
After you are done with your nominations, you can finish your submission by clicking on “Proceed to Payment” for paid entries, or “Process for free” for free entries. If your nomination includes a paid entry, you will need to fill out your payment information. Click finalize to move them to judging.
If you paid for an entry, you can print an invoice out for your receipts. You can go back and view these invoices under the submitted entries.

Your nominations will be available under “My Entries”, and you will be able to filter which ones are complete or incomplete.

Incomplete nominations

If you have not submitted the nomination, you can view a list of your incomplete nominations using the menu on the left side. Please make sure you either submit or click remove if you no longer wish to submit the nomination.

Technical Guidelines

For uploaded files, we only accept JPG/JPEG, PDF, DOC, MP3, MPEG/MPG formats. You will also be able to link to external sites, i.e. YouTube.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships are welcome. Click here for more information on how to sponsor.

Data and Privacy

We consider all people who create accounts to nominate as opted-in to GAIN Power communications. Anyone who is nominated who did not participate in the nomination process will not be considered opted-in but may receive contact from GAIN Power regarding their nomination.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is GAIN POWER?

GAIN Power is a platform to provide networking, marketing, events, and other activities to support the community of people and organizations who power Progressive politics, promote and protect our democracy through electoral and legislative advocacy.

We formed a hub and resource center for Democratic and Progressive campaigns, advocacy organizations, and the people and companies that provide products and services to them.

Why are you hosting an awards program?

Many industries have awards, best-of lists, and other recognition events as a way to honor and pay tribute to talent, and work products, and to market the people and organizations doing it. From the Oscars to the Emmys, Grammys, from the Webbys, the Clio Awards, and Obies, many industries recognize the best, newest, innovative talent, people, and programs. THE GAIN POWER Awards will do this for the Progressive Movement.

So much happened in 2022 – it would be easy to overlook most of the campaigns and move on but we’re not ready to do that – we want to use the awards process as an opportunity to do some forensics, reflection, and pay proper homage to some extraordinary people and programs that were likely glossed over.

Who will receive the awards?

Awards will go to powerful people, campaigns, technology, communications, and powerful organizations that had a significant impact. We aim to elevate and shine a spotlight on workers and programs that focus on salvaging our country through running for office, organization elections, civic engagement, participatory events, and public communications.

How will the awards be chosen?

The awards will be presented in June 2023. The nomination process will begin in January 2023. It will combine the efforts of general public voting and a panel of judges from across the progressive spectrum working to combine that voting into a fair process for the nominees.

Who is eligible to be nominated?

Anyone who worked for or volunteered for Democratic or Progressive candidates or ballot measure campaigns directly or indirectly in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked at a progressive non-profit organization, 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked at a progressive PAC in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked for the DNC, any state party, or any Party entity in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked for a state legislative caucus in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who volunteered for the above entities in the 2022 election cycle.
Anyone who worked at a consulting firm that had any of the above entities as clients in the 2022 election cycle.
Donors to any entities listed in the “eligible to nominate” list.
You can nominate others or yourself.

When can I nominate someone?

Nominations are open from January 2nd to February 28th, 2023.

When is voting open?

You can vote for award recipients from March 15th, 2023, to May 15th, 2023.

Who are the judges?

Judges are individuals from across the progressive movement with expertise in democracy, advocacy, and elections.