foundations

Foundations, in almost all of their stripes, represent an underutilized but often willing partner to encourage regional innovation. Relationships may take time to nurture, but the resulting collaborations can be of critical importance for advancing your local TBED agenda. To spur your thinking, the six examples below from the past three weeks alone show the various ways foundations are stepping up to help support regional innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Oakland-based Kapor Center, a nonprofit focused on leveling the playing field in tech, has announced the Tech Done Right (TDR) Challenge with funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With an emphasis on growing opportunities for women and people of color in the sector, the challenge will fund organizations with innovative solutions to building diverse, inclusive, and thriving tech ecosystems. Awardees will receive one-time grants beginning at $100,000.

Late last year, the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation announced a $23.7 million investment to strengthen technology-based economic development efforts at the University of Arkansas.

As the school year kicks off, several corporate foundations have announced new commitments to support hands-on K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) experiences for children across the country. These new partnerships continue a trend of corporate funders bypassing funding for STEM curriculum development to focus on active learning experiences that are shown to have positive impact on STEM retention.

The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, best known for its “genius grant” fellowships that finance creative endeavors, announced on June 2 a new grant competition called “100&Change.” The $100 million grant will be awarded to a single proposal that contributes to “solving society’s most pressing problems.”  Unlike other competitions, such as XPRIZE moonshots, the foundation is not defining what societal challenge or issue it wants to address, but instead it has purposefully created 100&Change to challenge the notion that foundation gran

As the 2015-2016 academic calendar comes to an end, several universities announced large financial contributions from foundations to address large societal issues including cancer and a variety of neurological disorders.  These large-scale initiatives will be undertaken at universities in California, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

Wells Fargo & Company released a five-year, company-wide corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy that includes significant commitments to inclusion, innovation, small business lending, and community investment. Its 2020 social commitment will target three commitment areas – diversity and social inclusion; economic empowerment; and, economic sustainability.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) announced the launch of PRO Neighborhoods, a $125 million, five-year initiative to promote economic opportunity in disadvantaged neighborhoods around the country. PRO Neighborhoods will invest in local collaborative partnerships and financial solutions, focusing on community lending, housing capital and high-quality data. Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) partnerships and collaborative efforts to provide capital to small businesses in distressed neighborhoods may be eligible for support.

As the water crisis in Flint, MI, continues to capture headlines, details on potential relief efforts are beginning to emerge. In January, President Obama granted $5 million in emergency funding to address the crisis, while the state has approved $67 million in funding since October.

The Indiana Biosciences Research Institute (IBRI), first unveiled in May 2013, is a statewide public-private partnership advanced by BioCrossroads that considers itself the first industry-led collaborative life sciences research institute in the country.