About the Award | How to Apply | Award Cycle Overview | Award Process Fees | The Feedback Report | Changes and Reminders
To be eligible for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, your organization must
meet requirements in one of six eligibility categories (manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care, and nonprofit)
Your organization must meet all of these conditions:
It is headquartered in the United States. (U.S. subunits of foreign organizations may apply for the award if the subunit is headquartered in the United States. For eligibility purposes, overseas U.S. military installations and embassies don't constitute U.S. territories.)
It has existed for at least one year (i.e., at least since April 1, 2020)
Your organization must also meet one of the conditions in the first column below to apply for the Baldrige Award.
Your organization has won the Baldrige Award (prior to 2016).
Your organization is eligible (All Baldrige Award recipients are ineligible to apply for the award again for five years after the year they received the award)
Continue with statement 2
Between 2016 and 2020, your organization applied for the national Baldrige Award, and the total of the process and band numbers assigned in the feedback report was 8 or higher.
Your organization is eligible
Continue with statement 3
Between 2016 and 2020, your organization applied for the national Baldrige Award and received a site visit.
Your organization is eligible
Continue with statement 4
Between 2015 and 2020*, your organization received the top award from an award program that is a member of the Alliance for Performance Excellence.
Your organization is eligible
*We are extending the 5-year eligibility window to six years through the 2024 award cycle to allow state top-tier recipients whose efforts to apply at the local or national level were impacted by the global pandemic of 2020. The 5-year eligibility requirement will resume at the beginning of the 2025 Award Cycle.
Continue with statement 5
More than 25% of your organization's workforce is located outside the organization's home state.
Your organization is eligible
Continue with statement 6
There is no Alliance for Performance Excellence award program available for your organization.
Your organization is eligible
Continue with statement 7
Between 2017 and 2020, your organization applied for the national Baldrige Award through the alternate method (Option 8 listed below) and the total of the process and results bands assigned in the feedback report was 6 or higher.
Your organization is eligible.
Note: Organizations that did not receive a total of 6 in the process and results bands will need to receive the top award from an award program that is a member of the Alliance for Performance Excellence.
Continue to statement 8
Your organization will submit additional eligibility screening materials (i.e., a complete Organizational Profile and two results measures for each of the five Criteria results items). The Baldrige Program will use the materials to determine if your organization is eligible to apply for the award this year (as described in the Eligibility FAQs.
After reviewing the materials, the Baldrige Program will notify your organization of its eligibility status.
Call 877-237-9064, option 3
Eligible organizations fall into six categories:
Eligible for-profit businesses include publicly or privately owned corporations, joint ventures, sole proprietorships, partnerships, and holding companies.
Organizations eligible in this category are for-profit and nonprofit public, private, and government organizations that devote more than 50 percent of their faculty and staff members and/or budget to providing teaching and instructional services directly to students. Examples include
Educational departments within schools or colleges are ineligible.
Education organizations may apply in the education category, using the Education Criteria for Performance Excellence, or, as appropriate, in the service, small business, or nonprofit category, using the Criteria for Performance Excellence (the Business/Nonprofit Criteria).
Organizations eligible in the health care category are for-profit and nonprofit public, private, and government organizations that devote more than 50 percent of their staff members and/or budget to providing health care services directly to people. Examples include
Organizations that don't provide health care services directly, such as social service agencies, health insurance companies, or medical/dental laboratories, are ineligible in this category but may be eligible in the service, small business, or nonprofit category.
Health care organizations may apply in the health care category, using the Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence (included in the 2021-2022 Baldrige Excellence Framework [Health Care] booklet), or, as appropriate, in the service, small business, or nonprofit category, using the Business/Nonprofit Criteria. If your organization is both an education organization and a provider of health care services, choose your eligibility category based on the activity that represents the larger percentage of your budget.
Nonprofit and government organizations are eligible to apply in this category. Examples include
If your nonprofit organization provides direct education or direct health care services in addition to other nonprofit services, choose your eligibility category based on the activity that represents the larger percentage of the budget. For example, if a state department of education allocates 70 percent of its budget to certifying teachers and educational programs and 30 percent to directly educating students, it is eligible in the nonprofit category.
The U.S. Department of Commerce, the American Society for Quality, and their subunits are not eligible to apply for the Baldrige Award.
The larger organization that holds or has control of a subunit is the "parent"—the highest level of an organization that is eligible to apply for the award. In the nonprofit category, examples of parent organizations are
the U.S. Department of Defense (not the Department of the Army)
the State of Maryland (not the Maryland Department of Transportation)
the Montgomery County Government (not the Montgomery County Health Department)
Sutter Health (not Sutter Davis Hospital)
Lockheed Martin (not Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control)
There is no limit on the number of subunits of an organization that may apply for the Baldrige Award within the same year. A subunit and its parent may submit eligibility certification packages in the same year, but only one (subunit or parent) may apply for the award in that year.
Education and health care subunits. If the parent provides direct teaching and instructional services to students or direct health care services to people, a subunit that also provides these services is eligible.
Manufacturing, service, small business, and nonprofit subunits. To be eligible, a subunit in these categories must function independently, with substantial authority to make key administrative and operational decisions, but it may receive policy direction and oversight from the parent organization. A subunit in these categories must
be recognizable as a discrete entity;
be easily distinguishable from the parent and its other subunits (e.g., by location or customers served);
have a clear definition of "organization" reflected in its literature;
function as a business or operational entity, not as activities assembled to write an award application; and
Subunits with less than 500 employees may apply under service or manufacturing if it is more appropriate than small business (i.e. divisions).
All Baldrige Award recipients are ineligible to apply for the award again for five years. For example, an organization that received the award in 2016 may not reapply until 2022.
However, during those five years, recipients may submit award applications annually to receive feedback reports outlining their strengths and opportunities for improvement based on the Criteria for Performance Excellence. After five years, award recipients may apply for the award or, if they wish, for feedback only.
Similarly, if a subunit receives the Baldrige Award, that subunit and all its subunits are ineligible to apply for the award for five years. They may also submit award applications to receive feedback only during those five years.
In addition, if a subunit with more than 50 percent of the total employees of the parent receives the Baldrige Award, the parent organization and all its subunits are ineligible to apply for the award for five years. They may submit award applications to receive feedback only during that time.
An organization that sponsors the Criteria cannot apply for the award during the two years that the sponsored Criteria are published.
An organization that participates in a Baldrige Collaborative Assessment cannot apply for the award during the award cycle in which the assessment occurs.
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