An opportunity for communities from the Intelligent Community Forum…

The Intelligent Community Awards Program® honors the achievements of Intelligent Communities in creating dynamic, prosperous and inclusive economies that strengthen social connections and support rich and meaningful cultures. These are the things that make a community of any size a great place to live, work, start a business, build a career, raise a family and prepare a way for the next generation.

How to Nominate Your Community

You are welcome to submit a nomination at any time. See the Smart21 Events page for the next closing date. Start your nomination →

The Value of the Awards

The annual Award program focuses local, regional and international attention on achievements and progress that too often goes unnoticed in communities, especially in small-to-midsize ones that are seldom in the news. For residents and employers, it shows the community in a new light on a global stage, and motivates greater participation in programs.

The Awards Process

At each stage, ICF uses a standard, documented, transparent process to gather information on communities, analyze it, score it and report the results, described below.

ICF maintains data on hundreds of communities around the world, drawn from Assessment Questionnaires submitted by them, updates they provide and publicly available information. The questionnaires are based on standards developed for ICF’s Intelligent Community Certification program, consistent with the six Factors of the Community Accelerator Strategy.  ICF periodically reviews and updates the questions based on current best practices in development. Entered into ICF’s analytic model, the data produces a score for each Factor and a score for the community based on an equally-weighted average of the Factors.

Several Minnesota communities have participated in the past and several have done well. But as I recall, they learned a lot just from the process of self-assessing their communities.