Deadline: 7 February 2019

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is inviting proposals from nonprofit and for-profit organizations that can either test new ideas or scale already-proven programs to remove barriers that make starting and growing a business more difficult.

Focus Areas

While they hope to see quality programs in all focus areas, in 2019 they are especially interested in programs that test or scale solutions in the following areas:

• Solutions Supporting Quality Experiences to Promote Inclusive & Equitable Entrepreneurship
  • Equitable entrepreneurship in industries traditionally lacking diversity
  • Support for under-addressed stages of company development and growth
  • Support for coaching and instruction models that drive company acceleration
• Solutions Focused on Inclusive & Equitable Ecosystems and Communities for Entrepreneurs
  • Solutions to diversify decision makers in entrepreneurship ecosystems
  • Solutions that influence gatekeeper decision making behaviors
  • Innovations in models for cross-organizational alignment
  • Developing nontraditional entrepreneurship hubs
  • Policy solutions and activity to strengthen inclusive ecosystems
  • Innovative rural entrepreneurship solutions
  • Solutions to reduce isolation and related stresses of entrepreneurship

Evaluation Criteria

To remove barriers, we believe that work with entrepreneurs must be done with certain values in mind. For this reason, all applicants will be evaluated based on their ability to demonstrate a combination of some of the following:

• Evidence of applicant’s organization’s impact
• Providing community-informed strategies and programming
• Systemically demonstrating a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Building equitable organizational collaborations
• Having the ability to articulate their organizational impact on the entrepreneurship ecosystem
• The organization’s use of best practices and current research in program design and delivery
• The organization’s ability to measure impact of proposed activities
• The organization’s openness to learning
• The scope of project’s impact
• The viability and sustainability of the proposed project

How to Apply

Applications must be submitted online via given website.

Eligible Country: United States

For more information, please visit https://rfp.kauffman.org/prog/kauffman_inclusion_open/