Each year, five Resilience Award winners are chosen from a pool of distinguished finalists across the following categories, plus the Chairman’s Award:
- Agriculture
- Manufacturing/Wholesale
- Retail
- Service
The Resilience Awards inspire pride in businesses and their communities and offers support and resources to help companies grow sustainably through:
Publicity
Darden is committed to helping showcase finalists, winners and their respective communities through a wide array of sustained media coverage. Specific support for all winners and some finalists includes press releases, story pitching, scheduling interviews, events and inclusion in next year's Resilience Awards marketing materials. Finalists and winners receive dedicated space on this website.
See media coverage of past Resilience Award winners at the Resilience Awards Media page.
Networking
Darden actively works to continually connect finalists and winners with key leaders from both the private and public sectors. Winners and finalists enjoy a wide range of networking opportunities that lead to increased financing and partnerships, access to talented new employees, closer relations with local, state and national officials, as well as the more intangible benefits, such as credibility, name recognition, and the opportunity to learn from other businesses.
Darden Executive Education Program
With a full scholarship to attend one of the Darden's open-enrollment Executive Education programs, Resilience Award winners are taught by full-time Darden faculty members. These thought leaders incorporate experiential learning (gaming, simulations, and physical activities) in conjunction with relevant business case studies (the cornerstone of the Darden learning experience) into each class. Darden’s Executive Education consistently earns high ratings by the Financial Times in its annual survey.
Qualification
The Tayloe Murphy Resilience Awards competition highlights businesses that demonstrate sustained vitality in communities facing challenging economic conditions.
Businesses that qualify:
- Are located in a community facing pressing economic challenges (with high poverty, high unemployment, and low self-employment);
- Have been in business for five years and can show growth;
- Have more than one employee; and
- Can demonstrate support for their community.
Are you in a qualifying area? Find out if your zip code qualifies here.
Apply for the 2013 competition here.
Winner Selection
The judges for the 2013 Resilience Awards are:
- Chairman, The Honorable Tayloe Murphy Jr., Attorney, Warsaw, Virginia
- Wayne Waldrop, Small Business Manager, Virginia Community Capital
- Mark Kilduff, Economic Development Consultant, New Kent County, Virginia
- Rebecca R. Rubin, President, Marstel-Day, 2010 Tayloe Murphy Resilience Award Winner
Ceremony
We highlight the work of all of our finalists and winners at Fall awards ceremony at the University of Virginia. If you are a member of the press and interested in the ceremony, please contact us via e-mail.
Still have some questions about the awards? Read some of our Frequently Asked Questions, or contact us at +1-434-982-2177, or via e-mail.