2024 Robert M. Artz Advocate Award

Check back for more details about the 2025 NRPA Awards.
Get A Reminder about the 2025 Nomination Period

The Robert M. Artz Advocate Award recognizes an advocate, an elected or appointed official, or volunteer who has demonstrated outstanding efforts to forward public parks and recreation through education and activating the public in their community, state or at the national level.

The nomination deadline is March 29, 2024.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Agency or nominator must be an NRPA member.
• Nominee must be an advocate, volunteer, elected official, appointed official or non-paid official (not a park and recreation agency or MWR employee).
• Nominee should demonstrate:
  • Outstanding contributions to parks and recreation in the form of land, money, services, equipment, labor and other kinds of assistance;
  • Effective leadership or counsel in support of a public parks and recreation agency in its programs or projects; and
  • Supportive advocacy action on behalf of parks and recreation through involvement in local, state, and/or national legislative activity resulting in the heightened awareness of the benefits of parks and recreation.

Application Materials:

• Answers to the questions provided in the application form
• Short essay responses (no more than 250 words for each) to the following questions:
  • Describe how the nominee's advocacy for parks and recreation has contributed to the NRPA mission to advance parks, recreation and environmental conservation efforts that enhance the quality of life for all people.
  • Describe the nominee's active support in realizing NRPA's vision, that every person in the United States should have convenient access to safe and affordable park and recreation opportunities.
  • Describe how the nominee has successfully galvanized support at the local, state, or national level through legislation or funding in support of local parks and recreation.
  • Describe how the nominee has made a lasting, positive impact at the local, state, or national level through parks and recreation resources.
• Resume, including volunteer activities
• Two letters of recommendation
• Optional - one additional supplemental item which highlights the nominee's efforts and achievements

Nomination Instructions:

• All nominations must be received by NRPA no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on March 29, 2024.
• Nominator may only nominate using this official nomination form.
• Applicants must have or create an NRPA login account to complete an application.
• All materials must be submitted electronically using this survey format. Supplemental materials must be submitted in either Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format and included with the application.
• Supplemental material file types include .pdf, .doc or .docx as noted on form.
• Nomination is automatically disqualified if it does not meet criteria, submission instructions of if the responses are over the word limit.
• This format has a save and continue feature that is located at the bottom of the question pages.

Terms and Conditions:

• NRPA reserves the right to disqualify an application if in NRPA’s sole discretion it determines that the application does not contain truthful information, is contrary to the standards or policies of NRPA, or violates applicable laws, or if the nominee acted contrary to the standards or policies of NRPA, or violated applicable law or could reflect negatively on NRPA.
• NRPA reserves the right to revoke any award or prize if in NRPA’s sole discretion it determines that the awardee acted contrary to the standards or policies of NRPA or acted in violation of applicable laws or could reflect negatively on NRPA.

For more information, contact the NRPA Awards Program at awards@nrpa.org.

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