PILLAR honored at the 2026 SWaMmy Honors

PILLAR was honored this week at the 2026 SWaMmy Honors, the Commonwealth of Virginia's annual recognition of small businesses that have shown the impact of state certification on their work. The award is presented each year by the Virginia Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity in partnership with Arlington Economic Development's BizLaunch.

Virginia's SWaM program (Small, Women-owned, and Minority-owned) is one of the more selective state certifications in the country. Approval requires real documentation of ownership, operating history, and financial standing. Once certified, businesses gain access to procurement opportunities with state agencies, public universities, and other Virginia public bodies. Each year the SWaMmys recognize a small group of certified businesses for the way they have used the certification to grow their work.

Accepting the award, founder and CEO Eddie Kaufholz spoke to the long nights and small frustrations that anyone running a small business knows.

So many of us have spent very long nights watching YouTube videos trying to figure out how to make QuickBooks work … running a small business is so often a solo sport. It feels so encouraging to be here as part of a team, and to be encouraged by the Commonwealth in this work.

What an award like this signals is that an outside body, with no stake in our success, looked at how PILLAR is operating and decided it was worth marking. For an agency built around creative, communications, and marketing work that has to land, that kind of independent read matters. We are grateful to Arlington Economic Development and the Virginia Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity for the work they do for small businesses across the Commonwealth.

If you've got work brewing, we're always glad to hear about it. Start a conversation.