Kauffman Foundation allocates up to $7M for inclusive entrepreneurship effort
April 24, 2017 | Meghan LeVota
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has launched a grant program that hopes to fuel business growth among underrepresented entrepreneurs.
As part of the Zero Barriers movement, the Kauffman Foundation is accepting RFPs for Inclusion Open, a grant program that aims to enable champions of underrepresented entrepreneurs to expand their services to topple barriers.
“We know entrepreneurs from many diverse backgrounds face weighty barriers. These barriers impose a high cost to the U.S. economy, in terms of job creation and innovation,” Victor Hwang, vice president of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, said in a release. “For example, minority and female entrepreneurs encounter especially persistent barriers that limit their ability to start and grow companies. Kauffman research has found that if minorities started and owned businesses at the same rate non-minorities do, the United States would have more than 1 million additional employer businesses and approximately 9.5 million more jobs in the economy.”
Inclusion Open will award up to $7 million to programs around the nation with grants ranging from $50,000 to $500,000. The deadline to apply is 5 p.m., May 2.
The foundation is looking for U.S. nonprofits and for-profit organizations that address direct barriers to disadvantaged entrepreneurs via access to training, capital and mentorship. Barriers can include bias, poverty, declining infrastructure, social isolation and demographic shifts.
“We are looking for organizations with uncommon solutions to level the playing field for entrepreneurs who have been excluded due to demographic, socioeconomic and geographic barriers,” Philip Gaskin, director of Entrepreneurial Communities at the Kauffman Foundation, said in a release. “These could be entrepreneurs who have faced barriers related to their gender, race, age, geography, disability or sexual orientation or their status as veterans or displaced workers.”
The Inclusion Open grant program is a facet of the foundation’s Zero Barriers movement, which was announced during the foundation’s visit to Washington D.C. in February. Along with entrepreneurs and policymakers, Zero Barriers plans to develop solutions that empower more people to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions.
Featured Business
2017 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
$1.6M grant will create incubator for low-income, minority entrepreneurs
A large federal grant will help reanimate an older industrial building in Kansas City to serve as a small business incubator. The U.S. Economic Development Administration recently awarded a $1.6 million grant to the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City organization said that the grant should create about 90 new…
Kauffman report: KC ranks 28 out of 40 in entrepreneurial growth
Fewer Kansas City companies are growing to become medium- or large-sized firms, according to a report released Thursday by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. It’s a common story across the U.S., as the nation rebounds from the slump of the Great Recession, the report says. The 2017 Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship report suggests the…
Housing trends show young professionals don’t care about Troost’s stigma, UC-B says
Lance Carlton initially was skeptical of developing east of Troost Avenue, he said. “But the mentality of the market has changed,” said Carlton, co-managing partner of UC-B Properties, which brought its offices to the 4300 block of Troost in August 2016. The company helped prove an appetite for residential development on the corridor with 19…
Mac Properties plans four-corner food startup village at Armour and Troost
Mac Properties’ Kansas City arm wants to turn a “sleepy intersection” on Troost into a four-corner incubator for thriving residential and restaurant activity. The vision is to create a “food startup village” as the foundation of the development, which would bring 400 new market rate apartments to Armour Boulevard and Troost, said Peter Cassel, director…