Welcome to the Beacon Prize nomination website.

The Beacon Prize honours philanthropy by an individual or couple. By this we mean an exceptional contribution of money, leadership, creative ideas, skills and time towards a charitable or social cause. Previous prize winners include international figures such as Sir Bob Geldof for his leadership role in alleviating poverty and famine, and closer to home, Janet Hannay for her support, friendship and practical help to parents with young children in local communities. You can see films of previous winners here.

We are delighted you are about to make a nomination. Before you go any further, however, please check that your nominee is eligible. You may find detailed eligibility criteria and any FAQs here . Please note that you may put them forward for only one category.

Please allow enough time to complete the form; it would be a shame if your nominee did not get the full recognition they deserved because the judges did not have enough information. You may save the form and complete it later if you need to.

Once you have started to complete the nomination, you will be sent a login and password that will ensure the information is secure. Using the login, you can leave the form whenever you want and come back to complete it later.

Please note that in keeping with the Data Protection Act we will need to contact your nominee if we are to process the nomination. However, you will be given the option of keeping your identity as nominator confidential from the nominee. We will not contact your nominee without your explicit authorisation, which you will be required to give before the form can be submitted.

We accept nominations made by individuals or charities, organisations and companies.

Nominations are open until 16 April 2010.

Who is eligible for a Beacon Prize?

Beacon prize nominees are people who have done something exceptional to make people's lives better. They must:

• be an individual or a couple.
• live or work in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man.
• have made an exceptional contribution in money, leadership, creative ideas, skills and time to a charitable or social cause.
• have taken a problem solving approach that is capable of being repeated.
• have shown entrepreneurial spirit.
• have made their contribution voluntarily - or if they are in paid employment, their contribution must have gone beyond that expected from someone in that role.

There are seven prize categories

• Community builder
• Leadership
• New initiatives
• Young philanthropist / activist
• Effective giving
• Family business philanthropist
• Philanthropy advocate