The 2026 NACo Achievement Awards are out. Eighteen categories. Hundreds of impactful county impacts from Weld County to Waukesha, Cumberland to Cuyahoga.

Read the summaries and the passion, complexity and real-world impacts of county officials quietly grinding away jumps off the screen.

That’s exactly why the awards are a great compliment to our new “We Are Counties” campaign.

“We Are Counties” exists to close a knowledge gap of the public, and our federal, state, tribal and municipal counterparts.

The Achievement Awards give us the ingredients to share our daily work. Every winner is a story already written by the work itself. Yet it must be amplified and validated.

Look at what counties achieved this year. Fairfax County, Va, put drones in the sky to assist first responders — arriving first on scene in roughly seven of 10 calls, in under two minutes on average.

Cuyahoga County, Ohio built a Taxpayer Assistance Program to keep cost-burdened seniors in their homes.

Waukesha County, Wis. stood up a mutual-aid damage assessment team that helped residents secure nearly $20 million in FEMA assistance after last year’s devastating floods.

Dakota County, Minn. turned library branches into public health hubs with naloxone kits, lactation support and mental health connections. All in a building people already trust.

Here’s the ask as part of NACo’s “We Are Counties” campaign: don’t just announce winners. Translate your programs into human impact stories. Demonstrate the return on investment of local taxpayers with the real-world impacts on real-world residents. Go beyond government lingo and insider talk.