Judging & Awards Process | The American Business Awards®
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Judging & Awards Process

Many of the judges are invited, and are former Stevie® Award winners. Other professionals apply to judge on the American Business Awards web site, and if accepted are assigned categories by Stevie Awards staff, based on their industry, function, and experience.

Judging of entries will be conducted over two months, from February to April, by judging committees focused on the main category groups. Each committee will have at least 10 - 30 members. Judges will be both volunteers and invitees. Judges’ average scores will determine the Stevie Award winners. Every category in which there is at least one nomination with a final average score of at least 7.75 out of a possible 10 will have a Gold Stevie Award winner. Otherwise, the nomination with the highest average score in a category will win the Gold Stevie Award trophy in that category. Every other nomination in the category with an average of at least 8.0 will win a Silver Stevie Award medal. Other nominations with an average score of at least 7.75 will win Bronze Stevie Award medals.

During judging, each entry is reviewed and rated by no fewer than five (5) judges. All entries are viewed and rated at the judges’ convenience online. Rating is done on a scale of 1-10.

Awards determination will differ slightly for the following categories:

  • New Products & Services Categories: New for 2027, winners in the Product & Service categories will be determined through a unique blending of the average scores of our professional judges and the votes of the general public. Voting will be open to the general public from March 15 through April 14. Nominees in these categories will be given images and other tools that they may use to encourage their customers, communities, employees, and others to vote for their organizations. (The public will see organizations’ names only, not the content of nominations.) For every 1,000 votes a nomination receives, we will add a full point to the judges’ average score. For example, if a nomination receives an average score from the judges of 7.87, and the organization receives 850 public votes, we will add .85 to the judges’ average, for a final score of 8.72.
  • Tech Startup of the Year Category: Final results in the three subsections of the Tech Startup of the Year category (categories B58 a-c) will be determined through a blending of the average scores of our professional judges and the ratings of a “Shark Tank”-like panel convened by the Costello School of Business at George Mason University, the largest public university in the State of Virginia. Nominees in the Tech Start of the Year subcategories will be invited to make a five-minute pitch to the panel, via Zoom, during the week of April 12. Details will be sent to nominees in early April.

All judges’ comments on entries will be available, anonymously, in entrants’ entry-submission accounts when Stevie Award winners are announced.

The veracity of claims made in winning entries may be audited. Any entry found to contain false or misleading information will be disqualified. Gold Stevie-winning entries will be published on The American Business Awards® website. Winners will have the opportunity to redact any confidential or non-public information from their entries before publication.