Nebraska Community Foundation Receives Grant from Kauffman Foundation
The Nebraska Community Foundation (NebraskaHometown.org) in Lincoln received a grant from the Kauffman Foundation as part of their Cental Standards RFP program. The total grant portfolio is $1.34 million. The second group of grantees in this portfolio will be announced later this year. This grant provides matching funds to build connections between entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) operating in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. The program will also help encourage collaborations with ESOs outside the region.
The Nebraska Community Foundation partnered with the Valley County Community Foundation Fund and will support Energizing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems—a cohort of twenty rural Nebraska communities that provide customized entrepreneurship education programs and facilitate peer-based entrepreneurship support best practices.
This program provides critical support to underserved Heartland entrepreneurs, who are too often overlooked as centers of innovation. Startup growth across the Midwest has been unprecedented in recent years with billions raised by new companies. With that momentum, ESOs across the Heartland are thriving as they collectively work to address the challenges and barriers for entrepreneurs and startups as they grow and scale their businesses.
Headquartered in Lincoln with employees working from hometowns in every corner of the state, Nebraska Community Foundation provides financial management, strategic development, donor education, and training in partnership with 1,500 volunteers serving 272 hometowns in 83 Nebraska counties. Since 1994, NCF has reinvested $393.1 million in Nebraska’s people and places. For information, visit NebraskaHometown.org or call (402) 323-7330.