South Carolina has a long history of small business builders. Family-run shops that have outlasted three economic cycles. Restaurants that started in someone’s kitchen. Founders who built their companies in towns nobody outside the state had heard of until those companies put them on the map.
This year, ten of them will be named candidates for the 2026 Local Visionary Award.
The Local Visionary Award is a new editorial program from ThriveUp, the cinematic media company that operates a network of city and state-level properties including SouthCarolinaDaily, UpstateWeekly, GreenvilleWeekly, and SimpsonvilleWeekly. The award honors independent founders whose work has shaped the communities they serve.
The candidate list will be announced at the end of May 2026.
The 2026 cycle is the launch year. The Upstate is the inaugural market. Candidates selected this year will be the first names in the permanent national archive at LocalVisionary.com, alongside winners from every market the network expands into in future cycles.
The structure is editorial. ThriveUp identifies candidates through original research, verifies the founder story, and selects ten finalists based on the depth of the work and the role the business plays in the community. The selection process is conducted by the editorial team independent of any sponsorship arrangement.
Once candidates are named, production begins. Ten cinematic documentary episodes, one per business. Each film runs between eight and twelve minutes. Each is built around the founder’s voice, filmed on location, and edited to the documentary standard ThriveUp has established across its prior work.
The films publish weekly across the ThriveUp network throughout the summer and fall.
At the end of the cycle, two winners are named.
The People’s Choice winner is selected by public vote across the ten finalists. The Editor’s Choice winner is selected independently by the ThriveUp editorial panel based on the criteria that define the award. Both winners are recognized. Both are added to the permanent national archive.
The decision to run the program statewide through SouthCarolinaDaily reflects the broader vision behind the award. South Carolina founders deserve cinematic documentation on the same scale that startup founders in larger metro areas have received for decades. The Upstate is the first market because that is where ThriveUp’s production base and existing editorial coverage are deepest. The program is built to expand from here.
The structure is also designed to scale beyond state lines. LocalVisionary.com is built as a national archive. Future cycles will run in Charlotte, Denver, and other markets where ThriveUp operates city-level properties. The South Carolina cycle this year sets the standard for every cycle that follows.
For founders across the state, the candidate pool this year is regional. Future cycles will widen as the program scales into other South Carolina markets.
For readers, the program offers a window into the founders shaping the state from the ground up. Cinematic films. Original storytelling. A permanent record.
The candidate list arrives at the end of May. The films begin shortly after.
Program details and the full candidate archive at LocalVisionary.com.