The National Magazine Awards Foundation (NMAF) has announced a new strategic plan for the National Magazine Awards (NMAs) that focuses on celebrating Canadian creators, while also introducing a new board of directors featuring members of Canada’s corporate community.
With the NMAs marking their 40th anniversary in 2017, the NMAF has pledged to refine the categories for the awards show to a “more focused” number of awards, while promising a reformatted event aimed at facilitating more conversation and networking.
The NMAF has also pledged to raise the profile of Canadian creators by recognizing their contributions to international media, and by appointing judges from the international magazine community.
“We’re getting Canadian work under the noses of the international media community, and I think that’s going to be very good for Canadian creators,” said Nino Di Cara, who embarked on a two-year term as NMAF board president on Aug. 30.
The NMAF announcement comes just a few days before Magazines Canada introduces its own competing national magazine awards program.
Barbara Gould, the NMAF’s managing director, said that the number of entries for the NMAs has been “fairly consistent” for the past decade, despite some well-documented challenges for the publishing industry. The 2016 NMAs attracted 1,670 submissions from 247 English and French publications.
The NMAF also announced new additions to its board of directors that include people from corporate Canada, including Mercedes-Benz Canada’s director of communications and PR JoAnne Caza; KPMG Enterprise national director Peter McNeil, and Raf Katigback, creative lead at Vice Media’s in-house creative agency Virtue.
Di Cara, the executive vice-president of content marketing at Bookmark, said that the new board members represent the “first wave” of new board members for the NMAF.
He said that the NMAF board is intended to reflect the composition of other successful not-for-profit boards, which rely on representation from outside industries. “It brings fresh thinking and a different way of looking at things,” said Di Cara. “[Caza and McNeil] come from blue-chip organizations and in my mind are blue-chip individuals, but they also have an enthusiasm and passion for the magazine and media business. They’re examples of bringing in some great external expertise.”
Katigback, he added, is a key representative of a successful digital-first media organization (although Vice Media did get its start as a ribald alternative weekly). “I would like to increase representation from some of the digital-only properties out there, to make sure we are fully addressing the needs of the digital community,” he said.
There is a precedent for including representation from the corporate community on the NMAF board, said Di Cara. “There’s obviously consideration and discussion about the right composition, but a motion was put to the board to diversify the board in this way.
“We went through a lengthy consultation period throughout the summer, and everybody felt this would add richness and diversity to our board,” he added. “These people aren’t coming on and buying influence in the awards or anything like that.”
Other additions to the NMAF’s board of directors include former Marketing editor-in-chief Tom Gierasimczuk, who was most recently publisher and general manager of Vancouver and Western Living magazines. Di Cara said that his appointment reflects the NMAF’s goal of becoming more national in its scope.
