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2025 LIVE UNITED

Award Nominations

The annual LIVE UNITED Awards recognize individuals and organizations in central Iowa who are making a huge impact, improving lives through their exceptional efforts giving, advocating, and volunteering for those in our community who need help.

Winners are honored in front of central Iowa business, nonprofit, and community leaders during United Way of Central Iowa's largest annual event, the LIVE UNITED Celebration. They are also featured in local media, on social media, and are presented with a beautiful award to display year-round.

LIVE UNITED Champions

The LIVE UNITED Champion awards honor organizations of all sizes that have made an exceptional impact in our community over the past year by engaging with United Way of Central Iowa, and inspiring their employees, partners, and others to do so by giving, advocating, and volunteering to improve lives focusing on equity and the Five Elements of a Thriving Community.

LIVE UNITED Champions are automatically nominated and are selected based on factors such as campaign participation, increased giving, participation in volunteer and education events, and other engagement activities.

LIVE UNITED Champions will be notified of their award in mid-January. All LIVE UNITED Champions will be eligible to self-nominate for the Spirit of Central Iowa award.

Spirit of Central Iowa Award

One LIVE UNITED Champion will be selected by a panel of volunteer judges as the recipient of our biggest annual recognition for an organization, the Spirit of Central Iowa award.

LIVE UNITED Leaders

The LIVE UNITED Leader awards honor individuals who have made an exceptional impact in our community over the past year through their engagement with United Way of Central Iowa by giving, advocating, and volunteering to improve lives focusing on equity and the Five Elements of a Thriving Community.

If you know someone who has gone "above and beyond" to make our community UNITED to THRIVE, please submit a nomination on their behalf. Several individuals will be honored.

Please provide your contact information and answer the questions below. If you do not see a form, please refresh the page.

 

The Judging Process

Once all nominations for the LIVE UNITED Leader awards have been received, they will be reviewed by a panel of volunteer judges to determine the award winners.

The Judges

LIVE UNITED award judges are community volunteers and include some past award winners, former Loaned Executives, and others who are highly-engaged with United Way of Central Iowa. No United Way staff or paid contractors participate in the judging process. Judges will only review nominations submitted for individuals with whom they have no affiliation or conflict of interest. 

The Scoring

The judges will assign each of the responses to the questions on the nomination form a point value of 1 to 10. An additional point will be added for each of the engagement activities selected in the last question on the nomination form. All points will be added together, and the nominations with the top scores will receive LIVE UNITED Leader awards.