35th Annual ATHENA Awards Nomination
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Thank you for your interest in nominating an individual or organization for the 35th ATHENA Awards Celebration!

What is ATHENA?
The ATHENA Award program began in Grand Rapids in 1989 and exists to honor women for professional excellence, community service, and for actively assisting women in their attainment of professional excellence and leadership skills. For more information, please visit our website: https://grandrapids.org/athena-grand-rapids/

ATHENA Leadership Award Recipient

  • Is an established leader and mentor who assists women in reaching their full potential
  • Demonstrates excellence, creativity, and initiative in their business or profession
  • Provides valuable service by devoting time and energy to improve the quality of life for others in the community
  • Actively assists others, particularly women, in realizing their full leadership potential

ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award Recipient

  • Is a rising leader who demonstrates excellence, creativity and initiative 
  • Serves as a role model and improves the quality of life for others
  • Is 35 years old or younger as of the date of the celebration, and has a minimum of five (5) years professional experience

ATHENA Organizational Leadership Award

  • Supports, develops, and honors women leaders in every stage of their life and career
  • Intentionally fosters an environment for women to thrive
  • Has practices/policies/data to support their commitment to women empowerment and leadership
  • Gives back to the larger community of women and girls by providing and/or supporting leadership development opportunities and initiatives

Best Practices
It is recommended that you draft your responses to the questions in a separate document and paste them into the form when you are ready to submit. Once your form is submitted, you will not be able to review or edit your responses.

ATHENA Leadership Award & ATHENA Young Professional Award Questions
The ATHENA Leadership Award and ATHENA Young Professional Award are founded on the ATHENA Leadership Model® from ATHENA International. This model identifies eight distinct attributes that are reflective of women's contributions to leadership: Authentic Self | Relationships | Giving Back | Collaboration | Courageous Acts | Learning | Fierce Advocacy | Celebration and Joy

  1. What ATHENA principle do you most associate this person with and why? (300 words max)
  2. How does this person impact and uplift women? (300 words max)

 ATHENA Organizational Questions

  • How does this organization support, develop and honor women leaders? (300 words max)
  • What practices/policies create a strong internal environment for women? (300 words max)

What’s Next?
Your nominee will receive an email prompting them to complete their portion of the nomination to be considered. It is important you input their email correctly. The Grand Rapids ATHENA Council will review all nominations and determine five finalists and 1 recipient for both the ATHENA Leadership and Young Professional Leadership Awards and three finalists and 1 recipient for the ATHENA Organization Award.

Please reach out to Summer Sharrard-Neering (summer@grandrapids.org) if you have any questions about ATHENA or this process. Thank you!

Award Guidelines

To be considered for an ATHENA Award:

  • All nominees must uplift and support women in the community and embrace the ATHENA principles.
  • The nominee has not been selected as a top five finalist for the same award category they are being nominated for in the past two years.
  • The nominee has not received an ATHENA award in the same category they are being nominated for.
  • The nominee has not received an ATHENA award of a different category in the last two years.
  • Nominees must work in Kent County.
  • Nominees for the Young Professional Leadership Award must be 35 years old or younger as of the date of the celebration, and has a minimum of five years of professional experience.