Who’s Making an Impact? Nominations Open for ALAN’s 2026 Humanitarian Logistics Awards

By Ashley Prince | April 16, 2026

Do you know a company or individual that steps up when disaster strikes? If so, the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) wants to know about it.

ALAN has opened nominations for its 2026 Humanitarian Logistics Awards. The annual program has been recognizing businesses and individuals committed to “saving lives through logistics” since its inception in 2017.

Nominations opened April 14, and they will close at 11:59 p.m. ET on June 30. Winners will be notified in August and recognized at the CSCMP EDGE conference. The conference will be held October 4-7 in Nashville, Tennessee.

If an organization has donated to a disaster relief effort or mobilized employees to serve their communities in a time of need, this award offers a great chance to be recognized for that humanitarian work.

What Kind of Work Qualifies for the ALAN Awards?

The ALAN Humanitarian Logistics Awards are presented in four different categories.

Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Relief recognizes businesses or individuals for financial or in-kind supply chain donations to crisis or humanitarian initiatives. 

Employee Engagement recognizes companies for volunteer activities their workers carry out around a crisis or humanitarian initiative. 

Research/Academic Contribution honors those who advance the body of knowledge supporting humanitarian supply chains. 

Lifetime Achievement recognizes an individual whose work has made a substantial, lasting impact on crisis or humanitarian supply chain activities. 

These categories are designed to recognize the breadth of different ways that organizations and individuals can make a difference in the world. Depending on the types of nominations received, awards may not be given in every category during every cycle. Additionally, ALAN may issue awards in other special categories if needed. 

Who Is Eligible for the ALAN Awards?

The ALAN Humanitarian Logistics Awards are open to businesses of all sizes, as well as outstanding individuals. Nominees do not need to have an existing relationship with ALAN in order to be eligible for an award.

Companies and individuals may nominate themselves or be nominated by someone else. ALAN does ask, however, that nonprofit organizations refrain from nominating themselves for awards. 

Before nominating a business or individual, the person submitting the nomination should ensure that the nominee is aware and able to participate in the awards-related activities if chosen. 

Businesses and individuals may be nominated in multiple categories, but they will only be named as a finalist in one.

What Does a Winning Nomination Look Like?

Last year’s winners illustrate the range of contributions the program honors and prove that nominees don’t need to be large enterprises in order to compete.

Continental Logistics received the Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Relief Award for providing pro bono transportation to deliver donated goods to food banks and community centers. The delivered donations helped more than 173,000 individuals after natural disasters, including Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires.

Fleet Advantage earned the Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Relief Award as well. The company was recognized for its Kids Around the Corner Foundation. Throughout 2024, the company hosted volunteer events tied to disaster relief efforts. Employees distributed more than 2,000 meals and hygiene kits, provided Easter baskets, and collected school supplies for kids in need.

Niagara Cares earned the Employee Engagement Award by mobilizing hundreds of employees to support relief efforts in California’s Palisades and Altadena areas after the Los Angeles  wildfires. Those employees assembled more than 500 care packages for first responders and 600 hygiene kits for displaced residents. 

Partners Warehouse, a Flex Logistics Company, also received the Employee Engagement Award. The company provided ALAN with donated long-term warehousing space and logistics support. This allowed ALAN to accept 80 pallet jacks, the largest material equipment donation in its history. That delivery allowed nonprofits to serve more than 700,000 individuals in need. 

On the individual side, Dr. Burcu Balçik received the Research and Academic Contributions Award for her pioneering work in data-driven decision-making across the preparedness, response, and recovery phases of humanitarian operations.

ALAN’s own founders took home the Lifetime Achievement Award, recognized for creating the organization in 2005 and sustaining it through more than 100 disasters and 300 nonprofit partnerships over two decades. 

These are not outlier companies with unlimited resources. They are organizations and individuals that found a way to apply their core capabilities in service of communities in crisis.

Why Does This Award Matter?

When a hurricane makes landfall or wildfires jump a containment line, the difference between aid arriving and aid sitting in a parking lot is often logistics. ALAN exists to mobilize the industry and close the gap between supply chain leaders and nonprofit organizations. 

Since 2005, the nonprofit has connected the supply chain industry with disaster relief organizations that need trucks, warehouse space, and expertise they can’t afford to hire. That model has touched the lives of roughly 10 million people across more than 100 disasters, according to ALAN.

The Humanitarian Logistics Awards exist to keep that pipeline flowing, putting names and faces to the work so that more companies see themselves in it.

To nominate an individual or organization, complete the nomination form at alanaid.org/humanitarian-awards-nomination. The deadline is June 30. For questions, contact Dr. Liana Valente at [email protected].