With nominations for the Idaho’s Best^TM of 2021 verified and counted, many inquiring minds want to know what it takes to become a nominee.

In fact, immediately after writing the first sentence of this article, I received a phone call from a gentleman who believed there must be a mistake, as the tutoring center he nominated didn’t make the list. They helped his son prepare for the SATs (a much more challenging feat this year) and do great things for the community, so why aren’t they in?

We love the passion with which you support your favorite businesses and organizations in Idaho. We love the pride that business owners have in their accomplishments and the loyal engagement of their employees and customers. And while we would love to reward all of those deserving organizations with a nomination, the numbers won’t let that work very well.

By the Numbers

Idaho is big on small business, as demonstrated with over 150,000 small businesses registered in the state. Around 36,000 of those companies have employees, providing jobs for 55 percent of Idaho’s workforce. That’s a lot of businesses to consider!

So how do we choose nominees? We don’t — you do! Through your online reviews over the last year and our nomination period held Oct. 19-30, Idahoans nominated 3,242 unique businesses for Idaho’s Best^TM. Following the nomination period, our team worked day and night to review and verify each one so that we could finalize our categories and determine which nominees made it to the voting round.

3 Reasons Why a Nominee Won’t Make the Cut

They Don’t Meet the Criteria for Idaho’s Best^TM
While minimal, there are some requirements for the Idaho’s Best Awards^TM. With few exceptions, the business or place needs to have a physical address within the state (i.e. radio stations).

And because online reviews are an important part of determining winners, nominees must have a Google My Business profile to be accepted (again, with very few exceptions).

Their Category has Changed or was Dissolved
Every year we aim to improve Idaho’s Best^TM, and that includes annual tweaks to our categories. Our goal is to hit the competitive “sweet spot” between broad and narrow so that we can compare apples to apples.

There must be enough competition to merit a category, while if it’s too competitive, we may need to break it up. We will always try to help a nominee find the right home if things have shifted, but they still need to qualify and compete for any category they are in.

The Competition Was Just Too Tough
This year there are 189 categories in Idaho’s Best^TM. Generally, we are looking for only 3-5 nominees representing each of the 4 regions in Idaho. If it’s a popular category, that’s not a lot of room! Unfortunately there will be some businesses left out.

How to Prepare for Next Year

There’s nothing stopping you from guaranteeing a spot on the roster next year if you didn’t make it in this time. As all of our nominations, votes, and reviews are tallied within a 12-month period, it’s open season for our 2022 awards.

That means that all you need to do is keep being great all year long. Subscribe to our notifications so we can let you know when nominations and voting begins. And when the time comes, ask your customers, family, and friends for their support.