You Create Hope: Read the UMKC Innovation Center’s First Impact Report

Where there are problems, there are entrepreneurs with solutions.

The energy and resolve of entrepreneurs have never been as apparent, or as necessary, as in 2020. During a time of upheaval, entrepreneurs found inspiration to move, and give, forward. 

They built connections, businesses and resiliency.

At the UMKC Innovation Center, we’re proud of the entrepreneurs we guide and consult. Together—entrepreneurs, service providers, investors, community and corporate leaders—we are empowering our communities. These entrepreneurs—these leaders—are our clients, our inspiration . . . and our hope.

Here’s a preview of what you’ll read about and watch in this first center-wide, interactive report:

• Uncover how Kansas City and Missouri entrepreneurs met the pandemic head on, offering assistance to frontline workers, reaching out to their communities, creating innovative solutions used nationwide and more.
• See how the UMKC Innovation Center’s in-house programs, one-on-one business coaching and regional and statewide entrepreneurship networks helped more than 7,000 entrepreneurs and business owners find opportunities and seize them.
• Learn how we work alongside communities in Kansas City, across Missouri and even nationwide to build resilient entrepreneurial ecosystems that unlock human capital and entrepreneurial potential.
• Discover how the center helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas and innovations into ventures that create jobs, grow the economy, address regional challenges and shape an economy of hope.

• Explore how we and our partners guided small businesses through crises, with information on financial assistance to online courses about adapting to a new economy; our resources and connections empowered entrepreneurs and kept families and communities afloat.
• Find out how we provide early-stage support and project funding—and give investors an early line of sight into up-and-coming innovations.
• See how we advance entrepreneurship-led economic development as we help entrepreneurship ecosystem builders nationwide build better infrastructure to support our doers, innovators and job creators.
• Explore our efforts to remove barriers and forge connections. Meet our partners in hope because the strength of a community is its diversity.