Eminence Award Postponed

A Special Message:

Since we launched BEQ Pride in the Summer of 2016, our Corporate Eminence Award has been a coveted designation of distinction conferred on a corporation for outstanding efforts to include the LGBTQ business community. As we engaged in the application and review process for 2020, it quickly became clear that maintaining the integrity of this distinction, our approach to Corporate Eminence Award had to evolve.

After much discussion, we have decided to postpone the BEQ Pride Corporate Eminence Award until next year.

In an effort to be as transparent as possible, we would like you to know how we arrived at this difficult decision. Our editorial team and awards committee regularly:

• discuss current events; 
• monitor business growth, innovation, and trends; 
• shadow the health and well-being of small businesses and their owners;
• track diversity, equity, and inclusion issues; and
• follow public policy, public sector entities, and government.

As leaders of a publication, platform, and network at the intersection of small business and diversity, equity, and inclusion, we realize our audience is carrying a tremendous burden during these tumultuous times.

After careful consideration of the impact of forces beyond our control — the novel coronavirus pandemic, protests and unrest across the country because of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the murder of George Floyd and our chaotic economic situation — it was clear we needed to press pause.

High unemployment and joblessness, diverse businesses failing in record numbers, supply chains disrupted, failures in government, and a climate of distrust in our American institutions are all signaling a need for a change. All of this is happening against the backdrop of record Wall Street gains and the feeling of widespread corruption in business. To say we are living in confusing and sometimes frightening times would be an understatement.

The confluence of world events, domestic unrest, and life as we knew it gone for the foreseeable future have conspired to supersede all we had planned for 2020. We have therefore tentatively scheduled the announcement of a new Corporate Eminence Award Application period beginning January 2021, when we will evaluate in earnest the meaning of Eminence and once again invite those corporations eligible for consideration.

In solidarity with those facing economic hardships, witnessing the ravages of the novel corona virus across the country and the collective reckoning with our shared American history, we know the progress enjoyed by the BIPOC, women, disability and LGBTQ business community requires our undivided attention. Eminence must wait.