AMERICAN LEGION AUXILIARY CENTENNIAL STRATEGIC PLAN DEPARTMENT ACHIEVEMENT AWARD The American Legion Auxiliary National Executive Committee adopted the vision for what the American Legion Auxiliary needs to look like by our 100th anniversary to remain the world s largest patriotic women s service organization advocating for veterans. To realize this vision, we must achieve the 5 goals of the 2014-19 Centennial Strategic Plan adopted by the NEC. To fulfill Goal 4 of the Centennial Plan, we are asking that all departments come up with their own 5-Year Strategic Plan or adopt the national plan. Once your department has chosen one of the two options and has started implementing the plan, your department is eligible for monetary awards up to $1,000 per year. Part of investing in the ALA 5-Year Centennial Strategic Plan includes rewarding departments who demonstrate progress in developing and implementing their Strategic Plan. So, we ve developed the ALA Centennial Strategic Plan Achievement Award, a process to help incentivize each department to stay focused on achieving the five goals of the ALA 2014-2019 Centennial Strategic Plan as approved by the National Executive Committee. Once your department is eligible to apply for the ALA Centennial Strategic Plan Achievement Award follow the steps listed below: Step 1: Locate the ALA Centennial Strategic Plan Achievement Award Application The application is attached to this email (sent from StrategicPlanning@ALAforVeterans.org) and can also be found on the American Legion Auxiliary s National website at https://www.alaforveterans.org/awards/. Note: The application is a word document. You will need to fill it out and save as a PDF for submission. We will NOT accept applications or verification documentation in any other format other than PDF. If you submit documents in a word document, image, or any format other than PDF, it will be sent back to you to be converted into a PDF before it will be considered. Step 2: Complete the application You may apply for the monetary reward one of two ways: A. You may choose to complete a portion of the application form each time you reach one of the five achievement steps listed. Simply submit the application form each time you reach a listed achievement. For example, if you reach all five achievements
at different times you will submit the application form five separate times and receive five separate monetary awards of $100, $100, $200, $300, and $300. B. You may choose to wait and complete the application form after you ve reached all five achievements. This means you will only submit the application form once and receive the monetary value of each of the five achievements in one lump sum, totaling $1,000. Step 3: Submit your department s application form Access the submission site by keying the following address in your web browser: https://auxiliary.smartfile.com/ftp/login/ or by simply clicking on the link above if you have this document open on your computer. It will look like this: Use the following ID and password to access the site ID: Strategic-User Password: 78p@ss89 Step 4: Upload your application and include your Department s name (Reminder: only PDF files will be accepted) Click on the green box that says Click Here to Upload Your Files
Click on Add Files to Queue Select your application and double click on the file
The file name should now appear on the screen If you ve accidentally selected the wrong file you can simply click the Remove button on the upper right side of your screen. Then find and double click on the correct file. Next, click Start Upload If the next screen looks like this and has the name of your file listed, congratulations! Your upload was a success!
Step 5: Confirmation of upload A member of the Centennial Plan Incentives Award Review Team will email you to confirm your award application has been received. Confirmation emails are sent every Tuesday, with a submission cut-off time of 12pm EST. So, this means that if you upload your application on Tuesday at 2pm EST, you will not receive confirmation until the following Tuesday. Step 6: Committee Review and Recommendation The Centennial Plan Incentives Award Review Team will review your award achievement application form for completeness and to ensure that you have included verification documents in the correct format. (Reminder: PDFs only!) After the application and verification documents have been reviewed, the Review Team will forward your application to the Implementation Team with their recommendation. Step 7: Implementation Team Review and Determination The Centennial Strategic Plan Implementation Team members use the Review Team s recommendations to guide them in their determination process. This two-stage review process is designed to ensure fairness to all applicants. Once the Implementation Team has finished its process the application will either be Approved or Returned for Revision. APPROVED Congratulations you did it! Our National Headquarters accounting team is hard at work preparing your award check! RETURNED FOR REVISION Applicant will receive information regarding what revisions/additions need to be made before the application can be resubmitted.