Vision Awards

The MNLA Vision Awards program is new for 2025, our 100th anniversary year! This program will recognize projects, programs, and innovations that fulfill the MNLA vision of "Enhancing lives by creating and maintaining sustainable green spaces."

Click here to go directly to the 2025 MNLA Vision Awards Entry Form.

Who can enter?

ALL MNLA member companies are eligible to enter and win an MNLA Vision Award!
MNLA members may submit up to three projects per year. Non-members are not eligible to submit entries.
The entrant must show how their submission fulfills the MNLA vision of "Enhancing lives by creating and maintaining sustainable green spaces."
For this program, "sustainability" consists of fulfilling the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations, while ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care, and social well-being.

Which types of entries qualify?

An entry can be almost anything that fulfills the MNLA vision at your company. Making our spaces sustainable can include an innovative way to produce the materials used or a pioneering practice with your employees. The MNLA vision invites us to think beyond the physical creation and maintenance of a green space, and includes making your production, operations, or work habits more sustainable.

This downloadable list of questions may help you realize you have a viable Vision Award entry. (This list is just to spur ideas and is not an attempt to cover all possible entries.)

Once you’ve found a possible project/program/innovation to enter, consider these questions:

What makes the entry exceptional (innovative, pioneering, etc.)?
Why do you believe this is a significant achievement?
Could this project or program be a model for others, or could the innovation be used by others?

Entries consist of:

(Compile all elements before filling out the application form.)

Company info, including Staff Size (estimate of your annual Full-Time Equivalents [FTEs]).
A hi-res company logo file.
Entry Title.
Entry Description (min. 300 words, max. 600). As you write, these questions may help you:
1. How does this project/program/innovation enhance lives?
2. What challenges were there to create and maintain the project/program/innovation, and how were they overcome?
3. Why is this project/program/innovation sustainable?
Photos of Entry. 3-10 hi-res photos of the project/program/innovation. (The entrant assumes all responsibility for copyrights, photographic fees, and client permission for further use of photos by the MNLA.)
Personnel Photos. 1-3 photos of the people who worked on the project, program, or innovation. For each personnel photo, be ready to identify the people in the photo in order from left to right.
OPTIONAL: Testimonial(s) from customers/clients/suppliers/end users that help explain how this entry enhanced lives by creating and maintaining sustainable green spaces. (Testimonials may help judges to evaluate the impact of your entry.) Submit as a document or PDF.
OPTIONAL: Up to three video links that will help the judges understand the entry better.

Process

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 12, 2025.
ENTRY FEE: $149 per entry via online payment, which includes a $29 processing fee. Should the entry not qualify for judging, $120 of the entry fee will be refunded.
VERIFICATION OF ELIGIBILITY: The day after the deadline for entry, the Vision Awards Task Team will verify entries are eligible for judging. Note that members of the Task Team do not serve as judges.
ELIGIBILITY NOTIFICATION: Entrants will be notified of the status of their entry as soon as possible after the Task Team review.
AMENDMENTS: If there are errors in the entry, the entrant will be allowed a short time to amend their entry.
JUDGING: Judging takes place over a couple of weeks.
RESULTS: Entrants will be notified of the judging results in late February. All winners will receive a free ticket for the Vision Awards Celebration on March 26.