the NAAMy awards
NAAMY Awards – an annual, national competition that honors and recognizes excellence, professionalism, and creativity within the nonprofit automotive museum field.
NAAMY Awards and Competition
The NAAMY awards competition is a nationwide annual contest produced by the National Association of Automobile Museums (NAAM) that recognizes, honors, and promotes creative and professional excellence in the fields of curation, education, collections stewardship, marketing, and other related museum endeavors. In addition to personal satisfaction and the respect of colleagues, recognition gained can be an important means of increasing a museum’s prestige in the community in general and is a point of interest with both private and institutional donors and when applying for grants.
Two Divisions of Competition
Division I: Museums with budgets less than $300, 000 Division II: Museums with budgets greater than $300,000
Rules of Competition
- Entries are open to any institutional member of NAAM. Submissions whose primary purpose is commercial activities are not eligible. Entries will be judged according to their alignment with the commitment of NAAM to advancing excellence in collecting, preserving, and interpreting automotive history.
- All submissions must have taken place or been created in 2024.
- Museums may enter two submissions in each of eight categories.
- Exhibits, programs, and other entries within a category that were initiated prior to 2024 are ineligible unless they have been entirely reimagined or substantially improved.
- All entries must be received by February 17, 2025. No exceptions.
- Professional firms or other related guidance must not be used in developing or preparing the entry submission package.
- Entry submissions must be complete and orderly in presentation.
- Judges’ decisions are final.
Contents of Entry
- NAAMY Entry Narrative– contact information, entry description, goals, and results. See next page for details.
- Supporting documentation– remember judges have never seen your project before and may not yet have visited your museum/facility so please be sure to provide ample information, pictures, contextual details, and other data that might be helpful to those evaluating submissions.
Entry Guidelines
- Entries must be submitted electronically by emailing your packet to [email protected]. A single, multi-page, PDF is preferred for each individual entry. Please format your packet file name to be <Category of Entry – Museum Name>, an example would be Interpretive Exhibits – Gilmore Car Museum.
NAAMY Entry Narrative
A narrative must be included, see application for details.
National Association of Automobile Museums
P.O. Box 50702
Bowling Green, KY 42102
(502) 219-4807
[email protected]