Baldrige FAQs

2024 Baldrige Award
Baldrige Reimagined Webinar FAQs
Baldrige Performance Excellence Program
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Recipients
Baldrige Examiners
Baldrige Excellence Framework
Health Care and Education Sectors
Baldrige Criteria; ISO 9001, 9004
Baldrige Cybersecurity Initiative

Baldrige Award Process Revisions (2024)

What are the key changes to the award process?

How will these changes impact award applicants?

How will these changes impact examiners?

How will theses changes impact state, regional, and sector-based award programs?

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

What is the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program?

What are the impacts of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program?

Who are the Baldrige Program's private-sector partners?

Why did Congress select NIST to manage the Baldrige Program?
NIST is a nonregulatory federal agency of the Department of Commerce. Its primary mission is to advance measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve the quality of life. Congress selected NIST to design and manage the Baldrige Program because of its role in helping U.S. companies compete, its world-renowned expertise in quality and measurement, and its reputation as an impartial third party.

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Recipients

Which organizations have received the Baldrige Award?

Which states have had Baldrige Award recipients?

How many organizations have applied?

How are recipients selected?

Can only U.S. organizations receive the award?

Does the award criteria and Baldrige Excellence Framework take into account an organization's financial performance?
Yes. Many factors contribute to financial performance, including business decisions and strategies that lead to better market performance, gains in market share, and customer retention and satisfaction. For award applications and self-assessments, organizations are urged to use financial information, including profit trends, in analyzing and reporting on improved overall performance and to look for the connection between the two.

Does the Baldrige Award amount to a product or service endorsement for the Baldrige Award recipients?
No. The Baldrige Award is given because an organization demonstrates organizational resilience, showing it has systems for managing its products, services, human resources, and customer (including student and patient) relationships, among other systems and results. As part of the evaluation, including the site visit, an organization is asked to describe its system for assuring the quality of its goods and services. It also must supply information on quality improvement and customer engagement efforts and results. That does not mean that a recipient's products or services are endorsed.

Why are the Baldrige Award recipients asked to share their successful strategies and to what extent?
One of the main purposes of the Baldrige Award is to pass on information about the recipient's strategies that other organizations can learn from and become more resilient. Representatives from the award recipients willingly have shared their organizations' performance strategies and methods with thousands. Each Baldrige Award recipient decides how much time and effort to devote to activities such as speaking engagements and tours of facilities. The requirements of the Baldrige Program are minimal. Recipients are asked to participate in the award's Quest for Excellence® Conference and the Baldrige Fall Conference presented by the Alliance for Performance Excellence in partnership with the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, to provide basic materials to those who request information on their organization's performance strategies and methods, and to answer news media inquiries.

Do Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients and applicants sustain their performance improvement efforts?
Baldrige Award recipients continue to strive for performance excellence, resilience, and long-term success. It is expected that recipients will continue their efforts, since they have embraced Baldrige, a system that requires commitment to continuous improvement. 

Are award recipients required to share trade secrets?
Baldrige Award recipients do not have to share proprietary information, even if it was part of their award application. Award recipients are required to share nonproprietary information about their successful performance and quality strategies with other U.S. organizations. The principal—and only required—mechanism for award recipients to share information is The Quest for Excellence® Conference. Many award recipients also participate in the annual Baldrige Fall Conference. The cost of sharing information often is outweighed by the benefits received. The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program assists in information sharing by providing profiles of and contact information for Baldrige Award recipients.

Do Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients become more profitable after receiving the award?
Award recipients report that they benefit from the application process and from receiving the award. Many award recipients gained new customers after receiving the award—customers they believe they would not have gained were it not for the award. Besides additional business, they see improved results, gain benchmarking partners, receive nationwide and worldwide recognition, promote individual and organizational learning, and increase internal motivation. Receiving the award, however, is not a guarantee of increased profitability, which is based on many factors.

How does the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award affect financial results/shareholder value? 
The Baldrige Program does not maintain information on the financial results of individual organizations. However, award recipients provide some financial results in their application summaries.

Baldrige Examiners

How are Baldrige examiners selected?

What are the benefits of serving as an examiner? Are examiners paid?

Baldrige Excellence Framework

I've never used the Baldrige Framework before. How can I start using it to improve my organization?

What is the Baldrige Excellence Framework?

Can a small business with limited resources get results from the Baldrige process?

Is interest in the Baldrige Excellence Framework increasing?
Since inception in 1988, the Baldrige Excellence Framework® has accelerated in acceptance and importance. Demand remains high, and elements of the framework have been incorporated into many books and articles. The Baldrige Excellence Framework pages remain some of the most popular web pages within the website of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Organizations of all sizes and types use the Baldrige Excellence Framework for improvement and self-assessment, including large and small manufacturers; banks and other service providers; small businesses from consulting firms to fast-food restaurants; K–12 school systems, universities, and proprietary education organizations; hospitals, long-term care facilities, and other health care organizations; nonprofit organizations; and local, state, and federal government agencies.

Globally, many business excellence programs use the Baldrige Excellence Framework as their performance excellence model or as a benchmark. The growth and success of Baldrige-based award programs at the state and local level and in the U.S. government also show that the Baldrige framework is recognized as a proven diagnostic tool for assessing organizational performance.

How long will it take to do a self-assessment?
The time required to prepare a self-assessment using the Baldrige Excellence Framework will depend on a variety of factors, including how much data your organization has already assembled, the size or complexity of your organization, and the thoroughness of the assessment you choose to conduct. A first self-assessment can frequently be accomplished in a one-day meeting. Before the Baldrige Award was revised for 2024, first-time applicants reported that it took them an average of 100 hours to complete the (paper) application, but the revised web-based application is designed to significantly reduce this time.

Health Care and Education Sectors

Why should an education or health care organization consider Baldrige? 　

How many education and health care Baldrige Award recipients are there?

How does Baldrige compare to accreditation by organizations (e.g., the Joint Commission, DNV GL-Healthcare, National Committee for Quality Assurance, and North Central Association of Colleges and Schools)? What is the value of Baldrige for a health care or education organization?
Baldrige is focused on organizational resilience and long-term success. Accreditation is focused on setting the base standards that all organizations must meet to be considered acceptable providers of health care or education services. All organizations must be accredited; only role-model organizations will achieve Baldrige recognition. Nevertheless, a Baldrige self-assessment will help all organizations proceed beyond accreditation to setting excellence goals—and improve the whole organization.  Incidentally, some accreditation organizations (e.g., DNV GL-Healthcare, the Joint Commission, and the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs) are incorporating elements of the Baldrige Excellence Framework into their assessments.

Baldrige; ISO 9001, 9004

Should your organization use Baldrige or pursue other performance management systems or tools? 
The Baldrige Excellence Framework is compatible with these systems and tools. In fact, recent iterations of many standards and accreditations have become more similar to the Baldrige framework. Some now include a systems perspective, self-assessment, process management, a focus on results, and expanding procedures to become more performance-based and systematic in evaluations. The following examples are organizations that provide performance management systems and tools:

• ISO’s (International Organization for Standardization’s) purpose is to facilitate international trade by providing a single set of conformity standards.
• The Joint Commission certifies health care providers’ processes.
• DNV GL-Healthcare is an approved hospital accreditation organization through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
• Accreditation organizations conduct evaluations of K-12 school districts and higher education institutions for accreditation purposes.

Some organizations may believe that, to become more competitive, they must complete ISO registration or implement Lean and Six Sigma, as well as implementing Baldrige. Many organizations use the Baldrige Excellence Framework as an overall management and leadership framework to identify and evaluate what is important to them. After they identify strengths and opportunities for improvement with Baldrige, they use ISO, Lean, and Six Sigma, and other improvement tools to build on their strengths and make improvements.