Our Citizen Experience Lab is pleased to announce that it will once again be partnering with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri, to work with a group of stakeholders to co-create a shared platform for advocacy around innovation and entrepreneurship in the state.
Together with the Kauffman Foundation, BioSTL, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and MOSourceLink, will form a statewide community of advocates who seek to enhance the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship across Missouri as well as elevate state support for these activities.
The goal of the of which is to build a sustainable advocacy platform that Missouri’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem will want to rally around so that innovators and entrepreneurs in all parts of the state, from rural to urban contexts, receive the support they need to bring their ideas to life. Like many states across the country, Missouri has dedicated time and resources to spearhead efforts in innovation and entrepreneurship, yet has faced key challenges in the process that BIF and the Kauffman Foundation partners are seeking to solve.
As the first step in this process, BIF’s Citizen’s Experience Lab will facilitate a one-day design studio slated to take place in late October in Kansas City, MO, to create defined mechanisms and outcomes that enhance the community’s collective capacity to effectively advocate about the value of innovation and entrepreneurship in Missouri, during which participants identify key metrics that define the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship in the state, design persuasive messages for use in advocacy, and set both short and long-term goals for advocacy achievements.
Mr. Kauffman, founder of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, believed it was a fundamental right for anyone who had a big idea to be able to bring it to life. In preserving his legacy, the Kauffman Foundation focuses on empowering entrepreneurs and breaking down barriers that stand in the way of starting and growing their businesses.
BIF has partnered with the Kauffman Foundation in the past to contribute to their efforts to build entrepreneurial ecosystems, including facilitating the design process for creating a strategic roadmap for Kauffman’s Startup Champion Network, as well as a new education platform for its 1 Million Cups initiative.
BIF’s Citizen Experience Lab is honored to support this initiative and facilitate its design process.