Nominations can be submitted with three different options for sponsorship. Full sponsorship, partial sponsorship, and no sponsorship. For Delegates who are fully or partially sponsored to attend, it is of great assistance in the young person’s ability to attend the Forum, however we also recognise that this may not be possible or the case for every nomination. 

If you have a young leader in mind that you would like to nominate but may not have the means to sponsor the nomination fully or partially, you are still welcome to submit their nomination. The National Leader Forum, upon request, can provide a thorough sponsorship pack to the individual to support their potential fundraising endeavours. This sponsorship pack includes a fundraising support letter from the Forum, with reference to our Host Parliamentarians, and a sponsorship email template to aid correspondence. 

Nominating a young person alone is a significant investment in their leadership journey; in the nomination form, there is an opportunity for nominators to provide commentary on why they are nominating each young person. Upon nomination, each young person will receive this in their official invitation – a signal of their nominator's belief and value seen in them. For nominations without sponsorship, this question is an invaluable element of the nomination process. 

-   Any young person in your circles who demonstrates leadership qualities, is in a current leadership position, is an up-and-coming leader or someone you want to invest in for their personal and professional development.
-   Any young person who is interested in developing their leadership skills and capacity, through the lens of servant leadership, compassion, connection, and values. 

We recognise there are several moving parts and conversations that need to take place prior to identifying and selecting young people to nominate for the National Leadership Forum. Over the long history of the Forum, nominators have been selecting and nominating young people through several streams; internal selection processes are unique to each nominator and context, however the below may be helpful as advised from seasoned nominators: 

    1) Handpicked selection
This traditionally entails a nominator knowing a candidate personally and nominating them – they have known this young person in varying capacities and contexts; whether it be personally or professionally, this nomination is a direct result of recognising the leadership skills within the candidate and further investing in their leadership journey.

    2) Internal Application Process
A significant percentage of our nominator pool opt to engage in a pre-application process prior to selecting their candidates and nominating them to attend. This is a more common process in the tertiary education or workplace space due to the high level of interest and applicants. For example, there may be only four fully sponsored places available and budgeted for, and interested individuals can internally apply with the hope of being selected. 

    3) Distribution of National Leadership Forum opportunity
‍Potential nominators advocate for the National Leadership Forum and distribute information via newsletters, e-news, notice boards, social media ect and welcome any young person to express their interest. The nominator may then wish to nominate the candidate and choose to allocate sponsorship based on available funds. 

-    Why do you want to attend the National Leadership Forum and how will this experience support you in your leadership endeavours?
-   The Forum's themes are based on compassion, connection, and values, how do these three cornerstones of leadership underpin your leadership style?
-    What is a leadership strength you believe would benefit the Forum discussion and what is an area of leadership in which you would like to grow in through your experience at the Forum?
-    How do you think your attendance to National Leadership Forum would benefit our community upon your return?
-    What is a leadership goal you have currently and how do you think an experience like National Leadership Forum may help you?

The Forum program has been intentionally programmed for a full immersive experience over four jam-packed days - a typical Forum day is programmed from 7:30am - 10:30pm. We welcome delegates to apply who will be able to fully immerse themselves in the program. We understand that all attendees at the Forum have significantly full and busy lives, with commitments - please note, there won't be any free time to take meetings or attend classes, for example. To get the most out of the Forum experience, come ready to engage fully in all sessions; expect big days and fairly late evenings. This will allow you to experience the program as intended and get the most out of your experience.. 

Our time at the Forum is very intentional, one of the primary cornerstones of the Forum is building connection. We ask that all delegates are accommodated at the Hyatt Hotel for the duration of the Forum to ensure all attendees have an equal and as intended experience at the Forum from a logistical and connection perspective. A majority of our program is held at the Hyatt, and it is often in the non programmed, small moments at the Hyatt where significant connections are made. 

Upon being accepted to attend the Forum, you can email the Forum team to organise an early arrival stay for the evening before the Forum. This is highly recommended for interstate delegates who may be travelling. The additional night costs $180 for a twin share room. Early arrival rooms are limited and are allocated on a first come first allocated basis. Please reach out if this is you and we will be happy to assist you.

As mentioned, we acknowledge we all live full and heavily committed lives outside of the Forum experience. For the 4 days we are there, we ask all attendees, delegates, team and facilitators to please find ways to reschedule, or pre-plan a catch up for anything external to the Forum that you may miss during the 4 days; it is important that we can all be present together for the experience and appreciate your flexibility with this in advance.

If your nomination does not come with sponsorship, the Forum, upon request, can support you with a Sponsorship Pack to aid your conversations and fundraising efforts. This sponsorship pack includes a fundraising support letter from the Forum, with reference to our Host Parliamentarians, and a sponsorship email template to aid correspondence - all tried and true collateral that has allowed delegates to receive third party sponsorship year after year. The Forum team is always available if you have any concerns around raising the funds and can support options such as payment plans, or are happy to facilitate a conversation with a potential sponsor if required.

We will be staying at the Hyatt Hotel, Canberra located on Commonwealth Avenue, Canberra (www.canberra.park.hyatt.com). Delegates share rooms with 1-2 other delegates of the same sex and/or gender. The Forum team will allocate rooms. We ask that all delegates come prepared to room with someone they likely don’t know, this is another intentional element of the Forum and is a valuable opportunity to build connection with like minded delegates.