The Center for Neighborhoods at UMKC received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to study the opportunities and challenges that Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs face starting new businesses in urban neighborhoods in Kansas City.

“Entrepreneurs and local businesses face a challenging environment for starting new or sustaining businesses in Black and Hispanic communities,——迪娜·纽曼, 社区中心主任, 说. “They encounter barriers such as lack of access to capital, inconsistent financing and pre-existing economic challenges related to redlining. We were honored to be invited by the Kauffman Foundation to apply for this funding.”

The Kauffman Foundation grant will support a community-focused research process that will examine the place-based challenges that entrepreneurs face due to a legacy of racially biased development restrictions. 除了, the Center will develop new knowledge about entrepreneurship opportunities for Black and Hispanic business owners.

“While we know that these entrepreneurs face race-based challenges, what is not as clear is how these challenges are compounded by the perception of their business locations by outside interests, 尤其是金融机构,——雅各布·瓦格纳, associate professor and director of Urban Planning + Design 说. “This study will allow us to research that impact.”

The Center will work with neighborhood and community networks to build relationships with Hispanic and Black entrepreneurs and develop a baseline analysis of the place-based challenges they face.

The second year of the grant will build on the first with a series of Asset Walks, an interactive and 协作 process in which the research team and local leaders will gather information from local entrepreneurs through informal meetings.

The results of the information from the Asset Walks combined with the baseline analysis will provide data for the center to understand which barriers to successful entrepreneurship are individualized, locational or systemic and which are a combination of these components.

The results of the study will not be purely academic, but a road map to success in rebuilding urban neighborhoods.

“We expect that this research will result in the development of new programs, workshops and training that will strengthen the ability of neighborhood organizations to be catalysts for escalating business development in the urban core,纽曼说.

“While we know that these entrepreneurs face race-based challenges, what is not as clear is how these challenges are compounded by the perception of their business locations by outside interests, 尤其是金融机构. This study will allow us to research that impact.——雅各布·瓦格纳

The Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Mo., that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, 流动性和繁荣.

The Center for Neighborhoods is one of six recipients of funding from this community-engaged research request for proposal.

“We’re excited to support community engagement in the research process through this grant portfolio,Chhaya Kolavalli说, 高级项目官员, 知识创造 & 研究企业家精神. “These six projects aim to build equitable, 协作, solution-driven initiatives between communities and researchers with the potential to advance inclusive prosperity through entrepreneurship.”  

The Kauffman Foundation anticipates that findings from this project will provide practical insights and knowledge for communities, 企业家支持组织, 生态系统的利益相关者, 政策制定者, researchers and philanthropy into how to develop equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems.