Community Excellence Award

The Community Excellence Award is the League’s highest community honor, recognizing inspiring place-based projects from across Michigan.

Every year, local leaders unveil thoughtful, creative projects that help their communities thrive. The Community Excellence Award highlights this work – we want everyone to celebrate the placemaking happening across the state and feel inspired to do great things in their own communities.

All League member communities are invited to submit projects they are most proud of, with each submitted project featured in the People & Place Blog. From these submissions, four finalists are selected to present at the League’s annual Convention, where attendees vote to determine the winning project. The community receiving the most votes is awarded the CEA Cup – an honor that celebrates the ingenuity of all our communities and a commitment to creating vibrant, thriving places.

2026 Timeline

3/10/26
Project submission opens

4/17/26
Deadline for submissions

7/20/26
Four finalists announced

10/7/26
MML Convention, Traverse City

Benefits of Participating

Participating in the CEA program comes with a variety of benefits, the most important of which is community pride. The online nature of the program allows you to boast about your project to a statewide audience! But we offer other perks as well:

Statewide Recognition

All submitted projects will be featured in the League’s People & Place blog, providing long term visibility of your community and project on a statewide platform.

Convention Spotlight

Finalists present their project on the main stage at the League’s Convention and host a dedicated booth in the exhibit hall.

Media Exposure

Winners and finalists are highlighted in the Review magazine, featured on our Live with the League web show, promoted in League communications, and shared with local and state media.

Award Distinction

The winning community receives the coveted CEA cup to display in their community for the year.

Inspiration for Others

Your project becomes part of our library of inspirational ideas that help other community members as part of the League’s idea bank.

How to Participate

Each League member community may submit one (1) project in any given submission year.

Submission Requirements

Your project entry must include:

A 150 word or less project description

Up to four (4) photos of the project and/or

a slide deck of no more than 10 slides (PDF version)

After submitting, a member of the League’s Marketing & Communications team will reach out to schedule a 30–60-minute interview to gather more detail for your People & Place blog feature. Please include contact information for the individual best suited for that conversation.

Selection Process

Preliminary Review

All projects submitted will be reviewed by a small panel of external judges – typically representatives from partner organizations and past CEA winners. Judges evaluate the projects in three areas:

Community wealth impact

Replicability

Creativity

The top four scoring projects move forward as that year’s finalists.

Want to know even more about how projects are judged? Check out the grading rubric used by the judges to evaluate each project here.

Convention Experience

The four CEA finalists advance to the League’s annual Convention, where they showcase their projects and compete for the CEA Cup.

•Deliver a five-minute presentation during the Welcoming General Session
•Host a CEA booth in a high-traffic area
•Engage directly with hundreds of municipal officials and peers

Convention attendees vote to determine the CEA winner, announced during the Closing General Session.