Open For Business Awards

Is Your Community Committed to Supporting Small Business?

Note: The Open for Business Awards will not be running during 2020-21

The Open for Business Awards are a great way to celebrate your achievements and gain extensive media exposure for your community.

The Open for Business Awards celebrate communities that have created a business friendly environment, allowing small business to flourish. Launched in 2011, the awards are managed and delivered by the Small Business Roundtable Secretariat, encompassing three categories:

• Small Communities (<5,000 residents)
• Medium Communities (5,000 to 25,000 residents)
• Large Communities (>25,000 residents)

2020 Open For Business Winners

Thank you for making this year’s Open for Business Awards a record breaking year.

Our winners for 2020 are:

Small Community – Lumby

Medium Community – Spallumcheen

Large Community – Saanich

Past Winners

2018-19

Best Small Communities Award  – Town of Gibsons
Best Medium Communities Award – Trail and District (Lower Columbia)
Best Large Communities Award – Maple Ridge

2017-18

Best Small Communities Award  – Chetwynd
Best Medium Communities Award – Kimberley
Best Large Communities Award – City of Campbell River
Best First Nations Communities Award – Nisga Lisims Government

How it works

The Open For Business Awards recognize and celebrate communities that best demonstrate they are promoting and adopting business friendly initiatives within their region. The Awards provide an important platform for local government to learn and share Best Practices, and showcase winning initiatives that have contributed to the success of local businesses.

For the Open For Business Awards, we invite and encourage communities of all sizes to tell your story, about how you are creating a Business Friendly environment within your community.

Please also refer to the Best Practices Guide for preparing your community’s case study, and if you have further questions then please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions page.

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Government of British Columbia through the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.