Halo Awards

The 2023 Halo Award Categories are:

Best Consumer-Activated Corporate Donation Initiative: Incorporating a linkage between a desired consumer action and a corporate donation. (e.g. a company making a charitable donation every time consumers purchase a product or respond to a survey or a buy-one-give-one campaign in which a company donates a product for every product consumers purchase.)

Best Consumer Donation Initiative: Asking consumers to donate at point of sale (in a retail location or online) or via a crowdfunding campaign. Common forms include coin canisters, “pinups”, automated pinpad, cashier asks, round-ups, online auctions, etc.

Best Education Initiative: Focusing on an educational issue such as supporting teachers with materials for the classroom or supplementing under-funded programs like art or music in a manner that supports business objectives of the company (e.g. helping create a future workforce or generating good relations in a community where the business operates.)

Best Emergency/Crisis Initiative: Responding to an immediate emergency or crisis or developing a long-term initiative to support an affected community or prevent crises from happening. (e.g. responding to the war in Ukraine, creating a long-term disaster relief program or developing new programming in response to Roe v. Wade). 

Best Employee Engagement Initiative: Meaningfully and measurably engaging a company’s employees in a cause-focused initiative to achieve both social and business impact. This could include encouraging employees to take an action (e.g. donating to a micro-loan program, voting or donating blood), broadening their horizons on a social issue (e.g. learning about a new culture, participating in implicit bias training) or supporting an employee’s personal volunteer passions (e.g. dollars for doers programs). This category encompasses both group and skilled volunteerism as well as more general engagement activities.

Best Health Initiative (Physical Or Mental Health): Producing a corporate social impact initiative that deals with physical or mental health issues whether that be raising awareness, raising funds or disseminating toolkits, resources or programs. 

Best JEDI Initiative (Justice, Equity, Diversity And/Or Inclusion): Encouraging consumers and/or employees to involve and empower people regardless of their abilities, age, social class, political beliefs, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. 

Best Social Service Initiative: Focusing on a social issue such as sheltering the homeless, providing food for children or training rescue dogs in a manner consistent with the company’s business goals. Best Social Impact Video Highlighting effective and creative use of short-form video distributed online or via traditional channels as part of a larger cause-related campaign. There must be a company involved in these videos — not appropriate for traditional PSAs

Best Social Impact Video: Highlighting effective and creative use of short-form video distributed online or via traditional channels as part of a larger cause-related campaign. There must be a company involved in these videos — not appropriate for traditional PSAs.

Entries must be for campaigns that occurred in whole or in part during 2022 in the United States or Canada. Campaigns qualify if they are designed to measurably advance the interests of both a business and a nonprofit partner or cause (note: this is MANDATORY. Campaigns that do not involve a company are automatically ineligible). Previous Halo Award winning campaigns are not eligible for re-entry in the category in which they’ve previously won (with the exception of new video creative in the Social Impact Video category).

For 2023, the deadline is 8 pm ET on January 10, with late entries accepted no later than 8 pm ET on January 12, 2023 and subject to a $150 late fee. All of your materials must be RECEIVED by these dates.

A committee of up to seven judges will evaluate the entries and select one winner and one runner up in each category. Judges will recuse themselves from judging a category if they have a relationship with an entrant that presents a conflict of interest. The judges may, at their discretion, switch the category in which an entry competes.

Finalists in each category will be notified of their status on or before February 15, 2023. Winners will be notified privately in late February. Winners will not be announced publicly until May 16-18, 2023 at the Halo Awards Program at the 2023 Engage for Good conference in Atlanta. The decision of the judges is final. In the event of a tie, the president of Cause Marketing Forum, Inc. will select the winning entry.

There are four judging criteria: Conceptual Strength, Execution, Business Results and Cause Results (Note: Entries in the video creative category will primarily be judged on their conceptual strength and execution).

Conceptual Strength
-Fit: Is there a strong fit between the cause and the business? Does the brand purpose shine through?
-Ownability: Does this campaign stand out and have an ownable angle?
-Depth: Does this program demonstrate a commitment to cause marketing or corporate social impact beyond a quick promotion?

Execution
-Resources: Did the campaign leverage a variety of each organization’ strengths and resources? 
-Creative: Does creative clearly communicate the program to target audiences?
-Promotion: Was the program integrated into an effective marketing communications program?

Business Results
-Did the program achieve measurable results relative to stated objectives?

Cause Results
-Did the program achieve measurable results relative to stated objectives?

Companies or nonprofits engaged in cause marketing or brand purpose work or relevant agencies. Campaigns qualify if they are designed to measurably advance the interests of both a business and a nonprofit partner or cause (This is MANDATORY. Campaigns that do not involve a company are automatically ineligible). Campaigns must occur in whole or in part during 2022 in the United States or Canada.

The 2023 Halo Awards submission period is now closed; no further payments will be accepted.

• Standard Entry Fee Per Campaign (includes 1 category): $250 (if received by 1/10/23 at 8 pm ET)
• Fee per Additional Category: $50/category
• Late Entry Fee: $150 additional (submissions received between 1/10/23 after 8 pm ET and 1/12/23 at 8 pm ET)

No. EFG Members and Non-Members are welcome to apply to the Halo Awards.

We will be in touch in February to let you know whether your campaign was selected as a finalist (each category typically has four finalists). Finalists are typically announced publicly on/about February 15.

If your campaign is selected as a finalist, we will be back in touch to notify you if your campaign was selected as a Gold or Silver Halo Winner (each category will have one gold and one silver winner) in late February or early March. The Gold and Silver winners in each category are announced publicly at the Engage for Good conference.

Please note: if you are selected as a finalist, it does NOT necessarily mean you have won a Halo Award. If you have any additional questions about the distinctions between finalist and winner, please don’t hesitate to ask us.

No. There are typically four finalists selected per category but only one Gold and one Silver Halo Award is given in each category. We will let you know if your campaign is a finalist and then we will be back in touch to let you know if your campaign was ultimately selected as a Gold or Silver Halo Award winner.

Email us here.