What is the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program®?

The United States public-private partnership dedicated to performance excellence®. Performance excellence is an integrated adaptive systems-based model for thinking and organizational design that considers balancing the current and future needs of all stakeholders.

The Baldrige Program:

• Raises awareness about the importance of performance excellence in driving the U.S. and global economy
• Provides organizational assessment tools and criteria
• Educates leaders in businesses, schools, health care organizations, and government and nonprofit agencies about the practices of best-in-class organizations
• Recognizes national role models and honors them with the only United States Presidential Award for performance excellence

The Baldrige Excellence Framework® was first developed in 1987 by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program®, which is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory federal agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Baldrige framework booklet includes the Criteria for Performance Excellence®, a set of questions that represent the leading edge of validated leadership and management practice. Through the Baldrige framework and Criteria, the Baldrige Program provides global leadership in promoting performance excellence and the learning and sharing of successful performance practices, principles, and strategies. https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/how-baldrige-works/about-baldrige