LIFT Startups

LIFT promotes the entrepreneurs, small businesses, and creatives who are growing the "next economy" on Vancouver Island. We do this by providing innovative business and community economic development services that include content marketing, social media marketing, media partnerships, as well as business development workshops and new-school "networking on steroids" events. LIFT is an innovation in the business and community economic development space. We are definitely NOT your father or mother's networking organization. And we are definitely NOT a traditional business and community economic development organization. We focus on grassroots collaborations, and we use our award-winning social media and promotional powers to showcase our members and our community. HISTORY LIFT was inspired by the notion that local talent (in business, the arts, and in community) is the future of Vancouver Island's economy. It was obvious that traditional economic development approaches in many Island communities had failed or were failing to entrepreneurial fires at the grassroots. Our mission is to Lead, Inspire, and Fuel Talent to grow businesses and economies that are rooted in the values of our Island communities. We launched in the Comox Valley because that is where Hans Peter Meyer (HPM), LIFT's founder grew up.   AWARDS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. In 2018 Hans Peter Meyer received the Entrepreneur Promoter Award from Startup Canada for the work we are doing at LIFT. Prior to that LIFT has won Best Social Media Organization (2016, 2017) and been nominated Best Networking Organization (2017) by the Comox Valley Record Readers' Choice Awards. HPM has also been nominated for Business Leadership (twice in 2015) for his work with The #WeAreYQQ Project, which was the basis for LIFT,  by the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce. HPM also received recognition from the Comox Valley Social Planning Society in 1998 for his community economic development work in the 1990s.