A Star Is Born: El Paso Engages with Community to Shine a Spotlight on Local Businesses
The City of El Paso has been running the Buy El Paso Rewards program for the past two years, encouraging shoppers to shop local and support businesses in their community. This year, El Paso is adding something new to shine a spotlight on the local businesses contributing to El Paso’s community and economy.
The inaugural Business One-Stop Shop’s (BOSS) Gala – A Star Is Born is a new initiative celebrating local entrepreneurs, innovators, and businesses across El Paso. As part of the gala, the city is giving the community a direct voice in the process - leveraging Open Rewards to power community voting and inviting shoppers to help recognize standout local businesses.
Community Engagement Leads Business Recognition
The BOSS – A Star Is Born Gala encourages community members to vote for eligible local businesses and recognize their contributions to the community. By giving everyone a voice, the program strengthens community engagement while bringing greater recognition to small businesses that are the backbone of the community. This integrated approach creates a powerful win-win alignment across three key groups:
For the City: Creates an interactive campaign that builds civic engagement.
For Local Businesses: Provides direct exposure to engaged local shoppers.
For Shoppers: Gives a meaningful voice in supporting small businesses while discovering new local spots across town.
Tailoring the Experience to the City's DNA
El Paso leveraged the Open Rewards platform to inject their own creativity and address their specific economic goals. For the A Star Is Born Gala, the city created seven movie-themed categories, each highlighting a different part of El Paso’s local business community:
Undiscovered Star Award: For the local places more people deserve to know about.
Sleepless in El Paso Award: For the restaurants, bars, activities, and experiences that give El Paso more to enjoy.
Red Carpet Ready Award: For businesses that help people look and feel their best.
Walk of Fame Award: For businesses with multiple locations serving neighborhoods throughout the city.
Hollywood Debut Award: For businesses that recently joined the community and are already making an impression.
Standing Ovation Award: For the teams whose warm welcome keeps customers coming back.
Lights, Camera, Impact Award: For Entrepreneurial Support Organizations that empower local founders and help El Paso businesses start, grow, and succeed.
Together, these seven categories show how El Paso shaped the program around its own community and that same flexibility can look completely different from one city to the next.
Whether your city wants to launch a high-glamour gala, a neighborhood restaurant competition, or a seasonal holiday push, the platform adapts to your vision. You have complete control ensuring the campaign resonates deeply with your shoppers and champions the exact types of businesses that make your city unique.
Deepening Engagement on the Shop Local Platform
El Paso is showing that a shop local program can go beyond shopping. The idea can take many forms:
Local business awards and recognition programs
Restaurant or neighborhood competitions
Seasonal “Best of Local” campaigns
Entrepreneur showcases
District-specific initiatives
The specific campaign can change based on a city’s goals, but the underlying model remains: give shoppers a reason to participate, local businesses greater visibility, and the city a scalable way to bring the two together.
From Rewards to Broad Civic Engagement
Beyond cash-back incentives, Open Rewards provides the platform to build a comprehensive civic engagement strategy. El Paso’s initiative shows how a tool built to stimulate local economic activity can simultaneously foster deep community pride.
Open rewards allows the city to manage city-wide rewards, public polling, promotional events, and business recognition as a unified program in a single cohesive hub. By leveraging this technology, cities create a frictionless way for shoppers to actively participate in their community, all while keeping local businesses front and center year-round.
Schedule a demo with the Open Rewards team, see how Open Rewards can help bring your next community initiative to life.
