Established in 1950, the ARA Awards provide an opportunity for organizations to benchmark their annual reports against the ARA criteria which are based on world best practice. The Awards are run by Australasian Reporting Awards Limited, an independent not-for-profit organisation supported by volunteer professionals from the business community and professional bodies concerned about the quality of financial and business reporting. The Awards are open to all private sector, public sector and not-for-profit sector organisations that produce in Australia, New Zealand and countries in the Asia Pacific Region and beyond that produce an annual report. The General Awards are a measure of the standard achieved – they are not a competition. The Report of the Year, the Best of Sector and Special Awards are competitive. The ARA has contributed to the dramatic improvements in the quality of reporting since 1950 by: Preparing and widely distributing ARA criteria based on world best practice as guidelines for preparing reports Conducting an annual seminar on reporting Providing constructive feedback by arrangement to those that enter the Awards; and Recognising excellence in reporting with Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in the benchmarking General Award and in the competitive Awards.