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2025 Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® Application

Part I: Application Instructions

ONLY ONLINE APPLICATIONS ARE ACCEPTED. APPLICATIONS MUST BE ENTERED THORUGH THE AEP APPLICATION PORTAL ON OR AFTER FEBRUARY 1 AND NO LATER THAN 5:00PM CST ON MAY 15, 2025. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS APPLICATION IS INTENDED TO SUPPLEMENT THE ONLINE APPLICATION PROCESS. IF THERE ARE ANY DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN THIS DOCUMENT AND THE ONLINE APPLICATION, THE ONLINE APPLICATION WILL PREVAIL.

The Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® Evaluation Team is responsible for the evaluation of the applications. The applicant will be advised of the results by mid-August 2025 and will be provided access to the official scorecard upon completion of the review process.  The decision of the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® Officer is final. By applying, you are giving permission for NPI to use the submitted documents to promote the program and the public procurement profession.

Additional information about the AEP program is available at www.npi-aep.org. Questions or comments concerning the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® program should be addressed to Carrie Mathes, MPA, CFCM, NIGP-CPP, CPPO, C.P.M., CPPB, APP, FCCM, Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® Officer, at aep@npiconnection.org

The Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® Program Partners

SPONSORS

  • National Procurement Institute
  • California Association of Public Procurement Officials
  • Canadian Public Procurement Council – Counseil canadien des marchés publics
  • Florida Association of Public Procurement Officials
  • Government Finance Officers Association
  • NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement
  • National Association of Educational Procurement
  • Texas Public Purchasing Association

SUPPORTERS

  • Airport Purchasing Group
  • AXIA Cooperative
  • GOVMVMT
  • National Cooperative Procurement Partners
  • OMNIA Partners
  • Pavilion
  • Strategic Government Resources
  • Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council
  • Universal Public Procurement Certification Council

The 30th Annual Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® award recipients will be recognized at the National Procurement Institute’s Annual Conference. The National Procurement Institute also provides the list of recipients to Sponsor organizations for recognition at their conference.

Your trophy will be mailed directly to your agency (phyiscal address only, no PO box) to the person listed as “Procurement Official”.

Part II: Submittal Instructions

Payment of the non-refundable application fee must be made electronically by credit card or procurement card when the application is submitted. Payment may be made in advance by check by contacting executivedirector@npiconnection.org. The application fee is $495 for NPI members and $695 for non-members. Membership in NPI costs only $130. Visit www.npi-aep.org/membership for details.

Registering: Each agency will register on the new platform with an e-mail address and unique password.  If you have an existing login on the NPI website, we recommend that you use your existing login.  If you have multiple individuals who work on the application throughout the year, the registered applicant will have the ablity to assign additional logins.

Log-in: You can log-in as often as you like to review uploaded information until the time you make your final submission.

Tabs: The tabs at the top will navigate you through the program.

Please note that once you make your submission final the application is locked and cannot be accessed.

DIRECTIONS FOR UPLOADING FILES TO THE APPLICATION:

  • Create a single PDF file with a unique file name for each criterion. Upload only one file for each criterion. If you are not applying for points for a particular criterion, do not upload any documentation for that criterion.
  • Make sure the submitted screen shots are concise and easy to read.
  • Make sure the documents are all facing the same direction and oriented for reading (left to right and not upside down).
  • File size is limited to 20 MB; however, it is recommended that files be minimized.
  • You will be able to make changes and add or delete files up until final submission.

Part III: Criteria

To receive the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® award, the applicant must obtain a total of at least 100 points. It is critical to check the submittal requirements as they may change annually. Date parameters have been updated and all documentation requiring dates must fall within the established parameters to receive points.

The point value of each criterion is always 5 or 10. All criteria are pass/fail. That is, you receive all the points allocated per criteria (i.e., 5 or 10) or none. If the Evaluation Team determines that the total points add up to at least 100, the application is successful. It is recommended that you determine the chances of success by completing the Self-Scoring worksheet (attached to the application) before submitting the application.  Please note that once you make your submission final, the application is locked and cannot be accessed.  You will be able to make changes and add or delete files up until final submission.

Submitting false information will result in disqualification of the application and may disqualify an agency from submitting future applications.

Narratives and/or annotations are required on each of the criterion to clearly explain and demonstrate to the evaluation committee what is being submitted. The application should be professional, clear and concise. If the examples/screenshots provided are not legible or if the narrative and annotation information is not provided or it is unclear, points will not be given. Model submittal examples are available to NPI members on the website after you log in, in the AEP Award dropdown links.

Some criteria will reference providing a link or a screenshot. For these criteria, you may provide a link in your pdf document in lieu of actual screenshots. Make sure to test the link prior to submitting. Links must be public facing (not on an internal network) to allow the Evaluation Team to access. Links pointing at the incorrect documentation or links that do not work will not receive points for that criterion. If the link points to a multi-page document, reference the correct page number(s) in the narrative.

Changes to the requirements for 2025 are italicized.