End of my MVP journey

It is said that all good things must come to an end. I did not apply for renewal [1] for the Microsoft MVP award, and as a result, I will no longer be part of the program as of the end of June 2025.

Why am I not applying for renewal?

There are many reasons; no single reason stands out above the rest, but it is the collection of things that made it clear it was the right time for me to withdraw from the program.

Part of it is I have had a challenging year over the timeframe that this renewal period covers, which I've written about in the past. Family obligations are continuing to take up a lot of my time. I could have applied for "consideration" if that was the only thing that prevented me from contributing this year, but it's not, and I don't want to be awarded if I don't deserve it.

Part of it is more related to simply outgrowing the program and needing to focus on other parts of my life. I am no longer as eager and willing to spend my personal time researching and writing blog posts, which also requires time to invest in keeping up with the constantly changing product environment.

I will continue to blog (occasionally), although it might start to be less product-focused and more random musings on both business and personal topics.

Thank yous

I wouldn't have even been a Microsoft MVP in the first place without the support of a generous community of Microsoft Dynamics GP folks. Belinda Allen, first and foremost, who nominated me, and Victoria Yudin and David Musgrave, who graciously shared their blog space(s) to share my blog at a time when I was first getting into sharing my knowledge.

I would be remiss if I didn't also thank Betsy Weber and Rie Merritt for their tremendous support at various times over the years. Betsy was my "CPM" (Community Program Manager [2]), and someone I loved working and interacting with. Rie leads the Data Platform community, including MVPs, and was fabulous to work with, too. I've loved getting to know both of them as well as many others over the years.

The start of my journey

I received this email 9 years ago, stating that my good friend, Belinda Allen, had nominated me for the Microsoft MVP Award. I remember being stunned at the time!

I was officially awarded my first Microsoft MVP award on Oct 1, 2016, and wrote about that here: Becoming a Microsoft MVP for the first time. If I was stunned at the time of being nominated, I was even more speechless when I received this email. So many emotions – happiness, excitement, validation, and feelings of being an impostor in a group of highly recognized community members, too!

From that point on, it has been a blur. There's a lot of email, Teams chats, meetings with product groups (optional but part of how you engage and give feedback), and seemingly constant tracking and documenting of contributions for renewals; it never stops. There are many benefits, I don't want to dismiss those, but ultimately, to get the award, you are volunteering your time and energy to give back to the community.

9 years, 8 awards?

My first award period covered Oct 1, 2016, to June 30, 2018, 21 months! I happened to be awarded just prior to a re-org where the renewals were centralized to a once-a-year timeframe and a lot of us were in this weird limbo period. So, I have 9 "rings" on my MVP Award trophy, but was only awarded 8 times.

Transition to new award categories

Up until last year, I was in the Business Applications award category, as a Dynamics GP MVP. At some point midway through my tenure as an MVP the program stopped referencing specific products within the category so we were all just "Biz Apps" MVPs. This past year, I was in two award categories – M365 and Data Platform – for Excel and Power BI, respectively.

I am thankful for how welcoming the folks in the “new” categories (to me) were, as a relatively long-time MVP but new in those categories. I feel, though, that I never made a dent in the new award categories, having barely gotten started with more active contributions there.

The benefits of being an MVP are tremendous, and I will miss a lot of them. The access to information and people is priceless. As much as the level of information we get can be a firehose, and it was difficult to keep up, I will miss it when it’s gone, I’m sure. All in all though, it’s the right decision and I’m completely OK with no longer having the MVP credentials to my name.

Footnotes

[1] The Microsoft MVP Award is an annual award, based on your contributions for the previous 12 months. At the end of March each year, those of us "up for renewal" need to apply for renewal. There is a cutoff each year so that newly awarded MVPs in recent months don't have to apply for renewal so early in their tenure, but generally it is everyone else that needs to apply. There is no rubber stamp (or shouldn't be). It is expected that we log our contributions throughout the year, and provide documentation to support our contributions – blog stats, podcast viewership, proof of presentations or whatever the contribution types are. The MVP Award team(s) review this, and in early July each year, the MVPs are notified whether they are renewed or not. Each year, we need to re-sign the NDA agreement to accept the award.

[2] CPMs are the connection within the Microsoft MVP Award program for us as MVPs for the program itself, outside of the product groups and specific award category folks we interact with.

Original Post https://jenkuntz.ca/2025/06/end-of-my-mvp-journey/