Spotlight Your Local Business Heroes!

Nominate businesses for the IC100 award here before Monday, May 31!

Once you finish nominating, we recommend that you encourage your nominees to apply by using this email template. If they meet the initial qualifying criteria, they will be invited to complete the extended application to verify previously submitted information and secure their finalist positions. We will keep you updated on your nominees’ statuses throughout the process.

Want to share the IC100 with your network? Use this one-pager, which provides a quick snapshot of the award program and its impact.

Eligibility

To be eligible for an IC100 award, a business/ owner must:

• Be an independently-operated company (not a subsidiary or division of another company) that was incorporated by January 2016 and have recorded a full-year of revenue in 2016
• Be a privately-owned, for-profit company that is not a bank or holding company
• Be headquartered in an under-resourced community*
• Have revenues of at least $50,000 in 2016 and have grown to at least $500,000 in 2020 and be the same legal entity throughout those four years. **

* ICIC defines an under-resourced community to include areas of concentrated poverty within city centers and secondary/gateway cities.

** ICIC has lowered the revenue criteria from $100,000 and $1,000,000 to $50,000 and $500,000, respectively, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s prolonged economic and financial impact on the small business ecosystem.

IC100 winners are catalysts of opportunity, optimism, and transformation in under-resourced communities. Thus, businesses or owners that are currently under criminal conviction or engaged in or supporting any activity that is illegal under federal, state, or local law are not eligible. Similarly, businesses engaged in activities that are harmful to the local community (e.g. predatory lending) are not eligible.