The Michigan Recreation and Park Association honors exemplary park and recreation professionals and citizen advocates through the Association’s annual awards. Honorees embody the core values of the profession, demonstrate the highest level of performance in their job duties and maintain a tremendous commitment to mParks and its membership. See below for information on the various awards categories. Only two nominations from a single agency may be submitted per category.

Award nominations must be fully complete to be considered for review.

Design

• Facility Design - Community Centers, indoor pools, gymnasiums, indoor sports complexes, welcome / information centers, nature centers, restrooms, picnic shelters, park support amenities.
• Landscape Design - gardens, landscape art, earth sculptures, interpretive pathways and gardens, reclamation projects and conservation projects.
• Park Design - projects contain landscape and facility components; examples include splash pads, outdoor aquatic facilities, sports fields, playgrounds, and trails and linear parks.
  Innovative Park Resources - recognizing an innovative maintenance program, equipment design or revenue producer.

Facility and design nominators must include a statement of support from the organization that funded the project.

Programming

• Innovative Recreation Programming - honoring creative recreation programs, fundraising activities, promotional tools and/or management practices. The Innovative Recreation Programming award also recognizes programs that engages a new audience, or a previously untapped group of community members.
• Innovative Park Resources - recognizing an innovative maintenance program, equipment design, sustainable practices or revenue producer/fundraising practices.

Marketing

• Seasonal Brochure / Activity Guide - Entries are judged on graphic design and use of photography and/or artwork, as well as creativity, sentence structure and description writing.
• Web Site - Judging will focus on site functionality, ease of use, design and content.
• Social Media Campaign - Judging in this category will be based around a social media campaign’s overall effectiveness, creativity, adherence to best practices and results. Social channels can include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, YouTube or a combination of channels.
• Graphic Design Piece - Judging in this category will evaluate a marketing piece’s creativity, graphic design and overall messaging effectiveness. Digital and print submissions are both accepted.
• Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMC) - honors the agency, professional or organization that has developed an outstanding campaign using a variety of coordinated mediums to deliver an effective message to an audience.
• Media Advocate - highlights a member of the media community who has been a vocal supporter of parks and recreation. Nominees may be a member of any media community, including television, radio, newspaper, online publication, etc.