Baldrige Award
Intent to Apply Now Open!
Apply now for the nation’s highest recognition for organizational and community performance excellence: the 2026 Baldrige Award Application cycle is now open!
Click here for the Intent to Apply form, due April 15 at 8:00pm ET.
Overview: What is the Baldrige Award?
Founded in 1987 through Public Law 100-107, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award® is the highest level of national recognition that a U.S. organization (businesses and nonprofits) – and now a U.S. community! – can receive for performance excellence. Beginning in 2026, the Alliance for Performance Excellence will administer the Baldrige Award on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
To receive the Award, an organization or community must demonstrate high performance, resilience, and long-term success through favorable performance levels and trends, comparisons to competitors and industry benchmarks, and systematic, well-deployed, and aligned approaches. Organizations and communities do not receive the Award for specific products, services, programs, or processes, though how it operates is evaluated to determine overall maturity and role model status.
Organizational and community applicants are evaluated in six main areas:
- Leadership
- Strategy
- Customer
- Organizational Intelligence (formerly Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management)
- Workforce
- Operations
Teams of highly trained national examiners – volunteers from all sizes, types, and sectors across the country – evaluate results and process performance through the lens of an organization’s (or a community’s) key environmental factors. The process involves rigorous evaluation and verification of high performance through site visits and produces a report that outlines key strengths and improvement opportunities as well as examiners’ ratings, rationale, and evidence. Based upon examiner findings, the Baldrige Panel of Judges makes recommendations to the Department of Commerce as to which organizations and communities should receive national recognition of role model status. The Baldrige Award is presented by the President of the United States or a delegated high-ranking leader in the Department of Commerce.
Up to 18 awards are given annually across seven Award categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care, nonprofit, and communities. Recipients of the Baldrige Award are not eligible to reapply for recognition for five years.
Award recipients must share information about their exceptional performance practices with other U.S. organizations and communities, but they don’t need to share proprietary information, even if they included this information in their Award applications. The principal mechanisms for sharing information are The Quest for Excellence® Conference (hosted by the Baldrige Foundation) and the fall Baldrige Conference (hosted by the Alliance in collaboration with state/regional Baldrige-based programs). Sharing beyond the Quest for Excellence® Conference is voluntary.
All Award applicant information is held in confidence and only shared on a need-to-know basis (e.g., examiners and judges).
To begin or accelerate a journey to excellence, most organizations and communities first begin with their state, regional, or sector Baldrige-based Alliance member program, as the collective mission of Alliance members is developmental in nature. To get started, click here to find a national directory of official Baldrige-based programs.
Why Apply?
There are many reasons for organizations and communities to consider applying for the Baldrige Award:
- Winning the Baldrige Award means being recognized for exemplifying excellence, innovation, and resilience. Baldrige Award recipients are identified as national role models of resilience and long-term success: their performance sets the example for others.
- Recipients often see enhanced financial and other benefits, including more visibility for contracts, certifications, and community connections.
- Baldrige Award winners expand their customer/stakeholder base and attract more engaged workforce members — often in challenging labor markets.
- Participating in the Baldrige Award process may be part of community stewardship: organizations’ participation will help other organizations — healthcare, education, nonprofits, and communities — improve for the betterment of the nation.
- Organizations and communities that participate in the Baldrige Award process become part of a global community of learners who share proven best practices in management and leadership within and across industry and sectors.
- An applicant may receive special recognition related to its core business/values and aligned with its organization’s purpose. Such special recognition is a point of pride for shareholders, workforce members, and other stakeholders.
- Every applicant will receive a report with unique insights related to its performance, innovation, and resilience. Such insights will allow the organization to prioritize improvement strategies and improve its operations using proven best practices. Another goal of the report is transparency — reports will show the examiners’ ratings, rationale, and evidence.
While the main purpose of the Baldrige Award is to identify and recognize world-class performance, a Baldrige Award evaluation is also a strategy to help organizations and communities build on their experience with local, regional, and sector Baldrige-based Alliance member programs to learn, grow, and improve. Some senior leaders have shared that Baldrige “helps organizations and communities get better at getting better.”
“The Baldrige application process provided…invaluable feedback that will help shape our future efforts.” — Brian Coltharp, President and Chief Executive Officer, Freese and Nichols Inc.
Changes in 2026
Reflecting the changes announced last fall, the Alliance for Performance Excellence will administer the 2026 Baldrige Award on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Building off the impactful changes of the Baldrige Reimagined process – and informed by extensive input from applicants, examiners, judges, consultants, and other stakeholders – the 2026 Award cycle introduces several meaningful enhancements designed to simplify participation, strengthen feedback, and increase value for applicants. These include:
▶ Changes in Eligibility
With the 2026 cycle, potential applicants may qualify to apply through one of two standard eligibility pathways:
- Receiving the Baldrige-based Top Tier Award of an Alliance Member Program within the last four years (2022–2025)
- Receiving a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) site visit within the last two years (2024–2025).
Applicants who do not meet either of these pathways may request consideration through an Alternative Evidence of Eligibility process, which requires submitting evidence of high performance that demonstrates sustained performance and improvement. More information on all eligibility pathways is described here.
▶ Finalist Status
Applicants determined to be eligible and participate in the 2026 Award process receive automatic “finalist status,” which includes a site visit in 2026, and recognition at the 2027 Quest for Excellence® Conference. Baldrige recipients are selected from all Finalists.
▶ Community
Approved by Congress in 2022, entire communities are now eligible to apply for the Baldrige Award (if determined eligible through one of the pathways listed above). In this category, a community represents a geographic place where leaders across sectors—such as health care, education, business, nonprofits, and local government—work together to improve shared outcomes for residents, rather than a single municipal government organization. Beginning in 2026, the Baldrige Award seeks to identify, recognize, and elevate role-model performance in how communities collaborate, solve problems, optimize resources, and improve community outcomes. The criteria used for this category are based on the C.O.R.E. Guide, developed by Communities of Resilience & Excellence.
▶ Improved Process
Also building on Baldrige Reimaged, the 2026 Award process features several key process changes:
- Further streamlined and aligned Award Criteria now with six Categories that match the main Baldrige Framework and with Results integrated with Processes.
- Further improved Scoring Rubrics, which will not only increase evaluation consistency, but serve as a thoughtful maturity pathway for all organizations and communities.
- Streamlined evaluation process, removing low-value-added steps for examiners, introducing an online examiner portal to improve efficiency and reduce time.
- Increased examiner team size (for greater perspective and expertise).
▶ Increased Value
Building off Baldrige Reimagined, the Baldrige Award Process Team is designing several changes and enhancements in 2026, all of which increase the value and improve the experience of applicants, including:
- Creating a more substantial final report, which outlines key improvement opportunities and potential next steps.
- Reestablishing the role of Site Visit Monitor to promote process consistency and fairness.
- Enhancing examiner training – not only to improve the experience for examiners, but to increase consistency and performance within the Award process.
- Elevating the role of judges and Master Examiners to better support examiner teams.
- Introducing a post-evaluation debrief with applicant senior leaders to aid in the transfer of insights and to promote improve action, and
- Reducing Pricing Levels across all categories (sector, size, type of applicant) to reduce the investment required to participate.
Intent to Apply is now open, and the deadline to submit intent is Wednesday, April 15, at 8:00pm ET.
A non-refundable deposit is due, either a postmarked check by April 15 or an electronic payment (details on the Intent form). Full applications and final payments are due by July 1 at 8:00pm ET; applications will be submitted via an online portal, like with the 2025 cycle (the portal will be available on or around April 15, but applicants can begin to compile responses to questions now!).
A full Award cycle timeline is available here: 2026 Timeline; note that examiner applications will be available May 1 (and due by June 1). Also note that the Business/Nonprofit version of the full Baldrige Framework will be available in early April, and the Healthcare/Education versions this summer.
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