Nominations should reference significant contributions made during 2025.
SSAFA’s Values and BRAVE Standards are powerful in that together, they underpin and provide guidance for everything that we do, regardless of role or location.
Staff or Volunteer Individual/Team Award:
Nominees must have truly stood out in embodying one or more of the SSAFA Values:
Commitment
Understanding
Integrity
Compassion
And consistently exemplify SSAFA’s BRAVE Standards:
Beneficiary focused
Respect for others
Adapting to change
Valuing diversity and inclusion
Excellence in everything we do
And must have significantly assisted our beneficiaries (directly or indirectly), raised SSAFA’s profile and reputation, or raised funds to a level beyond expectation.
Sir James Gildea Partnering Award:
Nominees must demonstrate one or more of the SSAFA Values and have significantly raised SSAFA’s profile and reputation or raised funds to a level beyond expectation. Nominees can be an organisation or an individual.
Please note:
- Any SSAFA volunteer or employee can nominate any other SSAFA volunteer, employee, team or external partner.
- Team nominations must be made to specific teams, not departments e.g. Events Team not Fundraising Department.
- You can submit multiple nominations for different people.
- A person can be nominated for an award if they have previously received one However, please ensure your nomination is relevant to their activities during 2025 and the nomination is significantly different to the previous one.
The Nomination Form
The nomination form has 3 sections:
1. Information about you
In this section you provide details about yourself and your role.
2. Information about your nominee
The exact questions in this section vary depending on if you are nominating an employee, volunteer, external partner, team or individual. The section covers the name of the individual/team, their role and region/department.
For the question regarding ‘How should their name appear on the certificate’ please double check the spelling and include any titles/post nominals that you feel the nominee would like on their certificate – please note: titles/post-nominals do not have to be included, this is optional.
3.The Nomination
Questions in this section are the same, regardless of who you are nominating, please see below:
a) Which SSAFA Values are relevant to your nomination (select all applicable)-
Commitment – Our belief is that everything we do must be focused on delivering the very best level of support – with compassion, empathy and discretion – to those we are helping. Our actions must be in accordance with the integrity of SSAFA and the values and expectations of the organisation as one of the leading military charities, operating in the UK.
Understanding – We are committed to providing a service on a highly personal one-to-one basis in direct accordance to individual need. Therefore, we take the time to understand the details of every single case. Only then, do we decide on the most appropriate course of action unique to that person’s needs. We also endeavour to understand the issues faced by our own teams of employees and volunteers. We will continue to take action to understand and support each of them too.
Integrity – We will not simply do what is easy, we will do what is right. We will speak out against instances of injustice. We will use our influence and position to raise awareness of the issues that affect the Armed Forces family.
Who we represent and serve. We will research and publicise issues that we believe are important. We will report and fight for change in order to support the person behind the uniform and their family.
Compassion - We will judge each individual case on its unique circumstances, without prejudice. We will take all fair and reasonable action that is in our power to resolve each case in the best way possible, acting in good faith every single time. All cases are dealt with sensitively and respectfully. Cases will be administered confidentially, personal data will be handled securely, protecting our clients, our employees and volunteers.
a) Please confirm the nominee consistently exemplifies the SSAFA BRAVE Standards (answer via checking a check box)
b) Please tell us why you are making this nomination for a Sir James Gildea Award?
The character limit is 4000 (Approximately 800 words or 1 A4 page)
Tips for a good nomination:
• Always link your examples to SSAFA’s values: The Sir James Gildea Awards recognise excellence in behaviours and achievements that particularly reflect SSAFA’s values.
• Give concrete examples: Be specific about what has prompted you to make this nomination. If they have made a difference to beneficiaries – explain what makes them special, if they have been an excellent fundraiser or awareness raiser – detail their efforts and share some stats, if they have shown brilliant leadership – what have they done to support your team, how have they made you feel?
•Think outside the box: As well as recognising people for making a difference day-to-day, we also want to champion people doing wonderful things differently. Has someone you know brought a fresh perspective or innovative ideas to SSAFA? Let’s hear about their achievements too.
•Think about impact, not just length of service: The Long Service Awards exist to recognise years dedicated to service, the Sir James Gildea Awards