A panel of judges will review your application for consideration for the Restaurant Neighbor Award and the $5,000 award. How can you get your application to stand out among the hundreds submitted? Follow these tips.

1. Tell a story. Use personal stories or connections about the work with the community and the people helped. Tell us what motivated you and your team to get involved in the project. (e.g., a sick child in your community, an employee's personal commitment, etc.) Tell about a problem your restaurant is helping to address.



2. Provide tangible results. Give specifics about how much money was raised or how many volunteer hours were spent working on your project. Explain how the money raised (directly or indirectly) is helping others and how the project has grown over the years.



3. Focus on one project. Concentrate your application on one specific community outreach project, rather than providing a "laundry list" of your philanthropy over the years.



4. Include news stories and letters of support. Newspaper articles and letters of support from the people you have helped can best tell your story.



5. Less is more. Include only materials that are relevant to the application and to your community-outreach project.

Please contact Alyssa Prince at 800-424-5156 with any questions concerning your nomination or the Restaurant Neighbor Award program.