The judging process for the Au40 awards is twofold. First, category leaders are chosen to head up the judging process for each category. Previous winners or relevant community members with close ties to that category are selected to judge the applications. The category leaders judge each application on two areas of importance – professional achievements and community involvement. These two areas are weighted based on their level of importance to the awards. Professional achievements receive a score between 1-60, while community involvement accolades receive a score of between 1-40. As a result each applicant will receive a score out of a total 100 points. Each category lead will be responsible not only for their category, but an additional category as well. This provides the scoring process balance and eliminates the potential for personal bias. A meeting is then held taking the scores from both committees and reviewing their findings. If rankings between the category leads differ substantially, each category leader will be called upon to discuss his/her rankings.

After the finalists are chosen, a winner’s committee is selected. The committee is made up from respected and accomplished members of the community. The Au40 Nominations team will update the website on the winner’s committee as we receive confirmation of their selection. The winner’s committee members follow a similar process as the category leads. All the finalists’ applications will be reviewed by each committee member and given a score 1-60 for professional achievements and 1-40 for community involvement. However, the finalists committee will meet and discuss each application providing the pros and the cons of each application. After the majority agreement of the committee to select winners for each category one Austinite of the year will be selected.

If you have any questions about the process please contact Stuart Hiserodt (shiserodt@sh-austin.com) or Amelia Whitman (curlymils@gmail.com).