Mr. Kauffman challenged his associates – at Marion Laboratories and at his Foundation – to take calculated risks. But what is risk for a privileged foundation? For us, it is an imperative.

Explore the data we’ve collected, the takeaways and lessons learned so far, and learn where we’re headed next as we continue to listen and adapt. Everything we do is grounded in the generosity and love for Kansas City that Mr. Kauffman infused into the heart of our mission Our founder Ewing Marion Kauffman was an […]

In 2017, the Kauffman Foundation awarded grants to five nonprofit organizations to form the backbone of the Entrepreneurs’ Policy Network. As the cohort continues to expand and involve other organizations that support entrepreneurs, it has formed into a community of practice that provides training, support, and peer-learning for entrepreneurship advocates. To select the grant recipients, […]

Get inspiration and insight from uncommon voices in 2019 that aim to break down barriers to success and offer hope for the decade ahead.

Angelica Castillo Chappel sees the Somali refugees rely on their children for translation, just as she and her siblings did for her parents. Many work at the Tyson plant, just as her parents did—one worked the day shift, the other the night shift. “There’s a whole lot who started with $100 in their pocket,” Castillo […]

Davyeon Ross remembers the mix of excitement and fear he and his parents felt when the opportunity to leave the West Indies island of Trinidad and Tobago for college became reality. Ross was offered a basketball scholarship to Benedictine College in the small town of Atchison, Kansas. But it’s hard to know all the ways you’ll succeed when faced […]

A CSV format text file is available for each file. Data file names correspond to the table names that are recorded in the codebook, with extension “csv” (table_name.csv). There is also a STATA data file (table_name.dta) for each table, except for patent_abstracts and grant_abstracts. For most scholars, even before downloading the COMETS data, the codebook will prove more […]

Kauffman Foundation summer intern Leann Caudill shares four recommendations on how to build a culture of learning inside a Foundation: Look for ways to embed a learning strategy into existing processes and structures at your foundation. Develop a robust lifecycle for your strategies and build in an explicit learning component. Build and maintain a culture that acknowledges failure and promotes continuous improvement. […]

Too many communities concentrate on attracting businesses from afar instead of growing them at home. In a thriving ecosystem, entrepreneurship empowers individuals, improves standards of living, and creates jobs, wealth, and innovation in the economy. But the success of an entrepreneurial ecosystem can’t be bought; it has to be built. In the 2019 State of […]

Connect with policymakers on your home turf. Though new businesses are vital to our country’s economic growth, many policymakers may not know about the latest startups in their states and districts and the challenges entrepreneurs face. Congressional Startup Day, formerly Startup Week Across America, is an opportunity during the annual August congressional recess for senators […]