The Trailblazer is a senior corporate social impact department leader whose governance, strategy, and programs demonstrate significant business and social impact over time. This leader can be the corporate social impact department head, or a senior leader within that team who has significant strategic leadership responsibility.
This leader is responsible for setting corporate social impact strategy, influencing C-Suite and line of business executives, and leading the staff and/or cross-functional team of employees who execute on the department’s responsibilities. The person has broad decision-making authority, allocates some or all the department’s budget, engages and communicates results with internal and external stakeholders, and is a key spokesperson for the company’s social impact initiatives and/or purpose.
This individual’s work produces measurable impact on social, environmental, or economic issues in the community and the business through exceptional leadership, expertise, innovation, and communication. The leader communicates an exceptional story of corporate social impact that builds influence and interest internally and externally.
This leader is a problem solver who overcomes challenges and/or barriers to success and helps their team be resilient.
This leader shows commitment to driving their community forward by tackling relevant and current topical issues within corporate social responsibility.
This individual may be an ACCP member or work in a non-member company.
Email purposeawards@accp.org with any questions.
The nomination period is April 30 – June 5, 2026.
Nominators will be informed in July 2026 of the status of their submission.
Please note: The 2026 Purpose Award recipients will be announced at the ACCP Annual Conference in Boston, September 14-16, 2026. There is an expectation for award recipients to be present for the awards ceremony to receive their award in person.
To make your application as strong as it can be, ACCP recommends you:
- Work with your nominee to create a thorough and data-filled nomination form.
- Think through the nominee’s story and their program as you begin your application and how you can tell that story.
- Consider how to explain how this program and work go above and beyond the organization’s work.
- List measurable outcomes. Understanding impact can be more of a challenge without measurable outcomes. For individual awards, highlight the individual’s contributions and outcomes, rather than those of the whole team, if possible.
- If you have additional documentation you would like to include for the judges to consider, please email it to purposeawards@accp.org.
ACCP Trailblazer
2026 Award Application
By submitting this application, you grant ACCP permission to use the information shared to create copy to announce and highlight the award recipient. The recipient will be highlighted and recognized at the ACCP Conference in September and in ACCP communications, including, but not limited to, the ACCP website, ACCP social media, and email communications.