2023 Founders Day and Silent Auction on April 19

We’re shaking up Founders Day this year – we hope you’ll join us on Wednesday, April 19, in downtown Columbus to network with your fellow Central Ohio journalists and celebrate our award and scholarship winners!

We’ve significantly lowered our ticket price from recent years, changed venues and put a renewed emphasis on our silent auction in response to your feedback. We’re also moving this Founders Day, our 73rd annual event, back to the spring, in honor of our chapter’s storied history! We hope to make this Founders Day an event to remember as we celebrate good local journalism and support students together.

This year, we’ll gather at the Columbus Center for Architecture and Design to toast the best in Central Ohio journalism (and bestow our annual brick wall award), catch up with current and former colleagues and be inspired by student journalists. Funds raised from our silent auction are used to award college scholarships to deserving journalism students, as well as to support chapter programming, much of which is free or low-cost for members.

When: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

Where: Columbus Center for Architecture and Design, 50 W. Town St., Columbus, OH 43215.

Tickets: $28 / per person (includes light appetizers and beer/wine). Click link to buy tickets on Eventbrite.

Silent auction info: Remember to bring cash, check or Venmo info to participate in the silent auction. If you’d like to donate a gift card, item, experience or subscription to support the auction, please email Eleanor Kennedy at [email protected] by March 22.

Awards: Submit your nominations for 2023 Founders Day Awards by March 22. Email us at [email protected] to submit a nomination.

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Award categories:

First Amendment Award: The First Amendment Award recognizes significant contributions to the First Amendment rights of freedom of expression. Individuals and organizations both inside and outside of journalism are eligible.

Appreciation Award: The Appreciation Award is presented to an individual or organization that has made a notable contribution to journalism in central Ohio. (may be posthumous)

Distinguished Service Award: Distinguished Service Awards are for members of the chapter who demonstrate professional excellence and dedication to SPJ.

Lifetime Achievement Awards: This award honors individuals for their lifetime of contribution to the journalism profession.

Brick Wall Award: The Brick Wall Award is a dubious distinction presented to an individual or organization that, according to chapter members, did the most to block citizen access to public records and proceedings or otherwise violated the spirit of the First Amendment during the past year.

Ohio Historic Site in Journalism Award: The Central Ohio Chapter of SPJ and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism started the Ohio Historic Site in Journalism Award in 2020 to recognize people, enterprises and places within Ohio that have played important roles in the journalistic history of Ohio and the United States.