More honours for more women: your guide to easier nominations

Schwartz’s article examining why this occurred has, in turn, led to feedback from Community Advocate readers who have expressed enthusiasm for nominating more women from the third sector, but confusion about how to do so.

It’s something Community Directors (ICDA – publisher of the Community Advocate) has been pushing for years. In fact, Community Directors offers a free online guide, Advancing Women: Women & The Order of Australia, that explains the steps involved in nominating somebody.

The booklet first came out in 2010 but was updated in 2017, which shows how long our chair, Carol Schwartz, and managing director, Denis Moriarty, have been working to promote more honours for worthy women.

Depressingly, only 27.8 per cent of people nominated across all Order of Australia categories from 1975 to 2016 were women, and this figure had crept up to only 30 per cent at the 2017 Queens’s Birthday Honours. Change is frustratingly slow.

It’s also worth noting that people from non-English-speaking backgrounds and people living with disability were under-represented in the lists of nominees and recipients as well.

For that reason, Advancing Women has more than a dozen pages of specific, useful guidance on pulling together a nomination.

Reacting to Carol Schwartz’s article, the CEO of Australians Investing in Women (AIIW), Julie Reilly OAM, said the fallback in nominations and honours for women last week only emphasised that the need to push for gender equality remained constant and unrelenting.

“Carol’s words rightly highlight the ongoing gender imbalance in the Australia Day honours,” she told the Community Advocate. “As we’ve seen in many areas of progress on gender equality, achieving change requires constant, persistent and intentional effort.

“Addressing this honours gender gap requires not just better processes, but a broader cultural shift in what we value and therefore who we put forward and celebrate.

“Recognition like this matters, and until more women are nominated and celebrated, the system will not reflect the full breadth of Australian contribution,” she said.

In 2024, the federal government released Working for Women: a strategy for gender equality, including five priority areas, one of which is seeing more women honoured for their work (Priority 5: Leadership, representation and decision-making).

The government also pushed for more women nominees last August, heading into the summer awards, with a #nominateawoman campaign.

The Governor-General’s website has pushed for the cause as well, simplifying the nomination process and making it entirely online, while more information explaining the various awards and how to nominate can be found on the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website.

Peak bodies, such as the Community Council for Australia, Philanthropy Australia and other industry and sector bodies, are also willing and able to be useful partners for potential nominations, adding credibility, weight and support regarding the nominee’s impact and work within the community or charity.

A checklist for glory

In the wake of last week’s gender-lopsided honours, our experts at Community Directors have created a checklist to help not-for-profits chase and win awards, either as an organisation or by promoting an individual within their ranks.

As the checklist says, most NFPs, volunteers and board members tend to shirk the limelight, not wanting to be seen to be doing what they do for individual glory.

But being shortlisted for, or winning, awards, prizes, honours, you name it, has many benefits. It is a great way to boost the profile of your cause, on everything from your socials to your website, email signature, stakeholder communications and wider media.

Why wouldn’t you want to salute the inspiring work of those within your ranks, especially women?

To read the checklist, click here.

No gender agenda for AI assistant

A final piece of assistance is available for members of Our Community’s Funding Centre, where the sophisticated Drafter AI tool doubles as a useful assistant for crafting nominations.

Drafter has been designed to look at questions and requirements within documents – usually grant application forms – before providing guidance and intelligence on how to best respond. The same analytical and strategic skills can be applied to nomination forms, and not just for honours, but for awards, prizes and other forms of recognition for female charity workers, leaders and philanthropists.

More information

The checklist

Advancing Women: the free online book

Drafter