The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) won two Association Excellence Awards (AEA) from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) for outstanding work in 2024.

BIAW’s Initiative 2066 campaign wins Best Government Affairs Effort - Regionally

In 2024, Washington's State Building Code Council implemented one of the most restrictive energy codes in the nation, essentially removing natural gas as an energy choice by making it too cost-prohibitive to incorporate natural gas into new construction. Next, late at night in the final days of the 2024 legislative session, the legislature passed a bill requiring one of Washington's largest utilities to plan to end natural gas service for all customers.

This is despite the fact that millions of customers rely on it, and hundreds of thousands of businesses do, too. In response, BIAW and our partners introduced Initiative 2066 to restore energy choice and fight natural gas bans in Washington.

The purpose and goal of this campaign was to empower the people of Washington to overturn efforts to ban, disincentivize or discourage the use of clean and affordable natural gas as an energy choice in new and existing construction.

To do this, we had to pass two significant milestones:

1)      Gather at least 420,000 signatures of registered voters to get Initiative 2066 on the ballot.

2)      Reach enough voters to contradict the lies and misinformation being spread so they would vote YES on I-2066.

BIAW worked with Let's Go Washington to leverage the power of their existing voter outreach machine to gather signatures at a series of Super Signer Events.

Results:

•        Worked with 400+ small businesses.

•        Collected more than 540,000 signatures –the second-highest number of signatures in history and the most gathered in the last 50 years.

Then we continued to partner with Let's Go Washington and other interested parties to do digital advertising, distribute yard signs, conduct a traditional doorbelling campaign, conduct media interviews, share on social media, participate in debates, place op-eds, and join the Washington area radio personalities and podcasters to get the word out.

Results: Passed I-2066 with nearly 2 million votes to prohibit banning, discouraging or otherwise discouraging natural gas as an energy choice.

BIAW Bracket Battle wins Best Membership Recruitment/Retention Plan

BIAW’s Bracket Battle was a March Madness-themed membership drive, pitting members against each other in randomized brackets. In each round, only the top recruiters of builder and associate members advanced to the next round until two members faced off in May to win the grand prize.

Members who lost their brackets were still incentivized to continue recruiting because they remained in the competition to win enough points to attend an exclusive recruiter reception at the International Builders Show in 2025. They could also gain bonus points for ROII, health insurance, National Purchasing Partners (NPP) and HBA Rebates enrollments.

The goals were:

•                    Have a more significant increase in membership growth through May 2024 as compared to 2023.

•                    Celebrate our active recruiters.

•                    Create synergy in alignment with local spring membership drives.

•                    Support the association through quality growth by aligning with ROII and BIAW Health Trust enrollment periods.

BIAW members achieved all these goals with a May 2024 YTD gain of 331 compared to the May 2023 YTD gain of 48.

Overall, the Bracket Battle engaged 64 members, brought in 444 new builder and associate members, qualified 24 new members for ROII and BIAW Health Trust and aligned with local spring drives. As an added bonus, local associations received over $10,000 in incentives! All the winning members received an invitation to the exclusive party at IBS in Las Vegas.

About the AEA

Held annually, the Association Excellence Awards recognize outstanding accomplishments of state and local home builders’ associations and executive officers in the field of association management.

The Executive Officers Council is made up of staff executives who direct more than 650 NAHB-affiliated state and local home builders’ associations representing more than 140,000 home builders in communities across the US.

“I’m continually impressed by the creativity, impact, and member focus shown by this year’s AEA winners,” said Mike Erdmann, EOC President and CEO of the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties in Oregon. “These awards highlight what’s possible when local and state associations stay grounded in their mission, respond to real-world challenges, and keep delivering value where it counts. Congratulations to each of these award-winning associations—you’re helping raise the bar for all of us.”

The winning entries will be added to the NAHB website, so that other executives and associations across the country can access and learn from them to provide better service to their own members and community.

‍