The Michigan Promise Zones Association presents the Promise Keeper Award to individuals or organizations demonstrating exceptional leadership and achievement in advancing access to free college tuition, technical training, and high-quality certifications. In 2023, the award was renamed to the Chuck Wilbur Promise Keeper Award in honor of Chuck Wilbur, whose extensive work supported the development and growth of the Michigan Promise Zones, provided technical assistance during the launch, and helped establish the Michigan Promise Zones Association in 2016.

The Promise Zones, created through bipartisan legislation first enacted in 2009, each operate broadly accessible scholarship programs that ensure students of all ages in their communities can pursue postsecondary education with confidence and financial support. 

Enrollment means little if students arrive academically unprepared. This award recognizes an individual, school, district, organization or institution that has made outstanding contributions to ensuring students are academically prepared for postsecondary education. Recipients may have strengthened early college awareness programming, expanded dual enrollment or AP access, built a robust college and career readiness curriculum, or worked to close readiness gaps among historically underserved student populations.

Michigan’s Sixty by 30 goal cannot be achieved without confronting the financial barriers that keep students, particularly our priority populations, from ever starting their postsecondary journey. This award recognizes an individual, organization, school, institution, or policymaker that has demonstrated exceptional leadership in making college more financially accessible. Recipients may have launched free college or Promise Zone initiatives, simplified financial aid processes, reduced hidden costs, or advocated for policies that put postsecondary education within reach for students who would otherwise be priced out or had other measurable impact on college affordability.

For many Michigan students, the gap between wanting to go to college and actually enrolling is where their dream ends. This award recognizes an individual, organization, school, institution or community partner that has demonstrated exceptional impact in converting college aspiration into confirmed enrollment especially for our priority students. Recipients may have strengthened application support, built bridge programs, or created the conditions in schools/communities where enrollment becomes the expectation not the exception. 

Getting students enrolled is only half the battle. This award recognizes an individual, institution, organization, or employer that has gone above and beyond to ensure students stay enrolled and continue making progress toward a certificate or degree. Recipients may have developed early alert systems, emergency aid funds, mentorship programs, mental health supports, childcare solutions, transportation solutions , or employer partnerships that allow working students to persist without having to choose between school and survival. 

A student who enrolls but never completes college leaves without the certificate or degree that changes their economic trajectory and Michigan falls short of its Sixty by 30 goal. This award recognizes an individual, institution, organization or community partner that has made a measurable difference in helping students complete their degree, certificate, or credential. Recipients may have redesigned completion supports, reduced credit loss from transfers, created accelerated pathways, provided targeted coaching in a student’s final semesters, or built systems that ensure near-completers don’t fall through the cracks. 

A college-going culture doesn’t appear on a spreadsheet; culture lives in the hallways of schools, in the conversations and expectations a community sets for its young people. The Culture Award recognizes an individual, organization, school, institution, or policymaker who has done the sustained, intentional work of making a postsecondary ambition feel attainable and celebrated. Recipients make college part of the air students breathe, long before senior year arrives! 

Michigan’s Sixty by 30 goal is simple to state and hard to achieve: 60% of Michigan adults holding a postsecondary certificate or degree by 2030. Progress depends on whether the right people are being reached and supported across the state. This award recognizes an individual, organization, school, institution, employer or policymaker that has made a meaningful demonstrable contribution to growing the share of Michigan residents who hold a postsecondary certificate or degree. Recipients may have re-engaged adult learners, launched prior learning assessment programs, created stackable credential pathways, or built regional strategies that bring more students across the attainment threshold.

To celebrate MCAN's fifth anniversary in 2015, the board of directors created an award that they may present when the occasion arises but is not necessarily given each year. Formerly known as the Board of Directors Award, it was renamed in 2019 to the Brandy Johnson Board of Directors Award. The board of directors made the name change in honor of MCAN founder and former executive director Brandy Johnson, who left MCAN in March 2019 to work as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s policy advisor for postsecondary educational attainment and workforce development. The award is given to an individual or organization that has been particularly supportive of MCAN's mission and the Sixty by 30 goal.