Our Story

Many extraordinary enterprises are too young, small or different to meet the criteria for mainstream business awards. They miss out on the recognition, profile and credibility they deserve simply because these entries and judging criteria tend to favour larger, more stereotypical businesses. 

Long-time small business owner and champion, Heather Douglas, was working closely with the sector. She knew how many micro, home and solo businesses were doing utterly amazing things - but they weren’t winning business awards. 

Having judged several other business awards she realised the issue wasn’t with the businesses themselves. “When you’re running on the smell of an oily rag or achieving the impossible through sheer grit and determination, triple bottom lines and Baldrige frameworks are the last things on your mind,” she says. “Even putting together an entry can take you away from your day-to-day activities for too long.”

2008 THE LAUNCH OF THE DAVID AWARDS

In 2005, Heather was awarded a Vero Excellence in Business Support Award for her advocacy of and support for businesses at the smaller end of the business scale. In 2008 she launched The David Awards, ensuring they embraced few barriers to entry, minimally-exclusive criteria and a tailored but rigorous judging process. It was time for these smaller, newer or funkier businesses to not only enter, but to shine! 

For ten years, Heather ran the awards under the umbrella of her Bizbuzz website with enormous support from a hand-picked, exceptional group of judges. In fact, some of the current judging panel (Pam Martin, Glenn Baker and Glenn Smith) have been on board more-or-less since inception! 

With a change in focus in her own professional life in 2018, Heather all but decided it was time to pull the plug. The David Awards didn’t take place that year and their future was dubious - until she got a call from 2013 Supreme Winner Richard Conway (Pure SEO).

Richard was adamant The David Awards had played no small part in his own company’s success, and wasn’t going to let them disappear so readily.

2019 COLLABORATIONS AND GENEROSITY

2019 saw the most amazing collaboration and generosity put The David Awards firmly back on the New Zealand small business map. With no funding and little time to prepare, Richard Conway and the trio of early judges joined Heather and the other long-standing judges, Richard O’Brien and Diane Hurford (herself a past winner). This core “action group” gave freely of their time and energy to help run the event while web wizard Reuben Jackson took on the unpaid task of transforming a legacy site into something fresh, dynamic, mobile-friendly and future-proof. 

It might sometimes have been a little hairy behind the scenes, but this core group of experienced, dedicated small business champions pulled off a miracle, because 2019 saw the unfunded but successful rebirth of The David Awards - with record numbers of diverse, high-quality entries and another crop of exceptional and worthy winners.

At the start of 2020, Heather gifted The David Awards to the small business community of New Zealand. She remains involved as patron but management and administration of the Awards is now in the hands of a highly-committed, multi-talented team of judges and administrators. Glenn Smith is currently at the helm, with a mandate for measures to be in place by the end of 2021 to ensure the event is not-for-profit, autonomous and self-sustaining.

STANDING ON THEIR OWN

The David Awards has recognised a lot of exceptional entrepreneurs over the years. Many have gone on to become well-known names and their businesses now feature routinely in more mainstream business awards. They regularly attribute a large part of their success to the grassroots recognition and credibility of winning The David Awards.

“Big isn’t necessarily better,” says Heather. “Yay for the little guys - the underdogs - who stand their own against the rest in a continually-evolving business landscape. These entrepreneurial men and women are smart, savvy, nimble, creative, hard-working, focussed and determined. The future of New Zealand’s economy is in great hands when we’ve got them at grassroots.”

Our hope - and plan - is for The David Awards to recognise and celebrate New Zealand’s “Davids” for a long time yet.