People Helping People

Susan Post introduced Aspire, the Columbus-cultivated award ceremony honoring social entrepreneurs. The annual award show began in 2013, and continues to celebrate social enterprise in Columbus today. Similar to many events in 2020, Aspire will be held virtually. Now the event has a larger capacity for more people to share this celebratory experience sponsored by Social Ventures. Three awards exist, which include Social Enterprise of the Year, Emerging Social Enterprise of the Year, and Nonprofit Sustainability. To give context to the awards, Susan gave examples of previous winners which included Freedom A La Cart, Honest Jobs, and Clean Turn. For this year, the award show has two awards: Social Enterprise of the Year award and the new Social Enterprise Coronavirus Pivot. Susan explained the importance of paying attention to recognizing the “social enterprises that were faced with huge challenges in their operational models because of the situation and found really great ways to pivot and find new ways to