The following was originally published on Valley Business Report
The Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation is the recipient of five prestigious awards from the 2024 International Economic Development Council Excellence Awards. With these additional awards, BCIC is now the most awarded economic development organization in Rio Grande Valley history.
BCIC will receive recognition at the IEDC 2024 Annual Conference in Denver, Colo. taking place Sept. 15-18.
The Excellence in Economic Development Awards program covered 26 categories, scored by 163 judges. This year, 64 Gold, 87 Silver, and 87 Bronze winners came from 146 organizations. Awardees are from a wide range of locations, from Australia, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United States. Each category highlights transformative projects that have had a profound impact on communities, regions, and nations.
The Awards
One of BCIC’s Gold Award comes from the Special Event category for RGV Startup Week. Recognition comes for its success in bringing together entrepreneurs, business leaders and the broader community to stimulate innovation and business development across the Rio Grande Valley. RGV Startup Week also took home a Gold Award for Postsecondary Education Partnership. BCIC’s collaboration with the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley is creating opportunities for students to engage with local businesses and gain hands-on experience in entrepreneurship.
Victoria Padron, COO, and Nelson Amaro, director of Marketing & Communications are responsible for the programs and projects winning the Bronze Awards.
Receiving a Silver Award for Recovery, Resiliency & Mitigation is BCIC’s Recovery Fund which provided crucial support to businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BCIC’s Bronze Awards come for the eBridge Fund (Innovative Financing) and the FY 2022 & 2023 Annual Report (Annual Report). The eBridge Fund facilitates access to capital for businesses that typically struggle to secure traditional financing. The Annual Report receives the honor for its comprehensive and transparent reporting.
BCIC commitment to Brownsville has been recognized in the past, with some of the projects scoring its second award this year.
In the 2022 IEDC Excellence Awards, BCIC received a Bronze Award for Entrepreneurship for the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization project, and a Silver Award for Neighborhood Development for the Business Improvement and Growth Program. More recently, in the 2023 awards, the partnership between BCIC and UTRGV ECC was honored with a Gold Award for Partnerships with Educational Institutions, and the eBridge Fund also received a Bronze Award for Best Use of Federal Economic Development Resources.
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