INSPIRE Awards – Honouring the most inspiring people, youth, businesses and organizations in the LGBTQ2S+ community in the Greater Toronto Area

The INSPIRE Awards event is now SOLD OUT

INSPIRE Awards Gala Tickets

Get your gala tickets to the INSPIRE Awards before they’re gone!

May 31, 2025 The Cathedral Church of St. James

Honouring the Most Inspiring People, Youth, Businesses, and Organizations in the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community in the Greater Toronto Area and across Canada!

INSPIRE Awards are presented by a collective of Community Partners:

The Pink Pages Directory, Pride Toronto, Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ Chamber of Commerce (CGLCC), Ontario Queer Chamber of Commerce (OQCC), Fife House, Rainbow Railroad, Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP), Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP), and Toronto Trans Alliance.

Inspiration Is Defined As:

An abstract concept or idea that has spiritual connotations as well as practical connotations.

Inspiration may be a person, event, or thing that can inspire the mind, emotions, or the body to a higher level of feeling or activity.

Our Definition of Inspiration Is:

A word that sums up the LGBTQ2S+ community and our friends and allies, a community that has worked and continues to work very hard to change the perceptions and prejudices of the world, and a community that has brought beauty and art and creativity and literature and much more to the world around us.

Our LGBTQ2S+ community is filled with stories of inspiration, and of individuals, businesses and organizations that inspire all of us.

INSPIRE Awards is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of facilitating the annual awards and inspiring the community. The original founders of the INSPIRE Awards vouched to,

“Inspire the community and bring it together; we will celebrate our past and present heroes so we never forget the work it took and still takes to build a community, and the contributions many make for the betterment of our own community and the world around us at large, and we will encourage living an inspiring life by creating future programs to that effect.”

Each year the INSPIRE Awards with the help of the LGBTQ2S+ community choose the following categories to honour:

Lifetime Achievement Awards (Two awarded annually)
Person of the Year
Youth of the Year
Positive Business of the Year
Inspiring Community Organization of the Year
LUX Award for the Arts
Charles Roy Award for Activism in HIV/AIDS
Accenture Innovator of the Year

The honourees of each category are chosen through community nominations and awarded by a jury panel formed of representatives of the Awards Board of Directors, Community Partners, and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community. Celebrations take place at an annual summer event.

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