[2] The awards are honoured to individuals, charities and community organisations across five different strands: Age; Disability; Gender; LGBT; and Race, Faith and Religion.

The Entrepreneur of Excellence award "recognises individuals who have best demonstrated managerial expertise in assembling resources, creating an organisation, decision making under uncertainty, being forward looking, and creatively solving problems.

"[3] In addition to this, the Diverse Company award is an individual honour which recognises a company’s commitment to encouraging "people from the most deprived areas to further their careers" [3] The prestigious Lifetime Achiever award recognises a person’s "significant, innovative and cumulatively outstanding contributions to enhancing the practice of equality and diversity, devoting a major portion of their professional career to the cause.

In 2013, Dowling was invited back to host the awards and was joined by co-host and CBeebies presenter, Cerrie Burnell, who was previously a celebrity patron of the event in 2012.

Amongst the National Diversity Awards celebrity patrons are contemporary R&B and hip hop artist, Misha B,[8] Peter Tatchell;[9] wheelchair Paralympic Quad double Gold medallist, Peter Norfolk OBE; Paralympic Gold medallist, cyclist and former swimmer, Jody Cundy;[10] Paralympian volleyball player, Claire Harvey; stars of Channel 4 television documentary, My Transsexual Summer, Drew-Ashlyn Cunningham [11] and Lewis Hancox;[12] and transsexual beauty queen, Jackie Green.

Even now in today’s modern society we are still tackling issues of prejudice and discrimination so it is important to come together and focus on those who have demonstrated an outstanding work ethic in order to enhance equality, diversity and inclusion.

"[14][15] Other celebrities to give public backing towards the National Diversity Awards include Brian Blessed,[16] Katie Piper,[17] Trevor Nelson, Meera Syal,[18] Gareth Thomas,[19] Javine Hylton, Gina Yashere, Saira Choudhry, Lemar, Ross Adams, Philip Olivier, Tessa Sanderson, Chris Boardman, Ade Adepitan,[20] Danny Crates, Karen Darke, Sarah Storey,[15] Barney Storey[21] Lenny Henry, Tom Daley, Ashley Walters, Letitia Hector, Alex Beresford and Amal Fashanu.