The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is seeking applications for its 2022 Knowledge Challenge to support activities that improve the understanding of entrepreneurship and generate practical, actionable, and rigorous evidence to inform decision-making and change systems.
Donor Name: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Country: United States
States: All States
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 02/28/2022
Size of the Grant: $400,000
Grant Duration: 36 Months
Details:
Strategic Goal
Supporting projects that generate practical, actionable, and rigorous evidence to inform decision-making and create systems changes needed to ensure individuals have the opportunity to achieve economic security, mobility, and prosperity.
Funding Opportunities
The two focus areas are:
- Systems and structures to support inclusive prosperity: This area will explore the infrastructure needed to support entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs live within communities that are shaped by many interrelated systems and structures — communities where access to financial capital, health care, childcare, education, food, and transportation are often unequally distributed and COVID-19 has fundamentally altered the business landscape. They need a more holistic understanding of how these structural conditions shape outcomes for entrepreneurs — particularly those whose race, gender, and geography have too often left them underserved by entrepreneurship and the economy more broadly — so that they can work towards greater inclusive prosperity. How can they ensure that the structures and systems in place create opportunities for individuals to start a business? What is needed to help entrepreneurs sustain their businesses, build capacity, and thrive? Systems and structures addressed in this focus area could address these questions. They especially welcome submissions exploring wealth and income inequality, emerging trends in financing, and broader protections and social supports needed among entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs.
- Equitable opportunities and the future of work: This area will explore how entrepreneurial activity might be structured as the economy emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. How they work, what they do for work, and where they work are changing. Digital technologies, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, platforms, and algorithms are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, shaping the ways they work and live. What supports are needed to align entrepreneurial activity with the goal of inclusive prosperity? How might supports vary among different forms of entrepreneurial activities such as self-employment, independent contracting, gig work, and employer firms? How do changes in work tasks and arrangements affect entrepreneurial activity? What new innovations are emerging, and what is yet to emerge? How can they ensure that these changes create more equitable outcomes, rather than supporting existing inequalities? How do they ensure that the future of entrepreneurship helps support and sustain individuals, families, and communities? They welcome proposals that explore these issues with an eye towards the future and what may lie ahead for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.
The Kauffman Foundation seeks to support research projects that generate practical, actionable, and rigorous evidence to inform decision-making and create systems change. To this end, we expect research findings to be relevant to and shared with a broad audience. This might include, for example, sharing research findings with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial support organizations, community leaders, and/or policymakers in various capacities. They look for research projects that aim to take a translational research approach, working to connect research with practice and/or policy.
Funding Information
Applicants may request funding up to $200,000 for projects led by a single PI and up to $400,000 for projects led by a team of collaborating PIs (interdisciplinary teams and research-practice collaborations) over 36 months.
Eligible Criteria
- This call is open to PIs who are affiliated with organizations that are either institute of higher education or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
- Eligible applicants must be located in the United States.
Restrictions
They will not consider funding for:
- Indirect/overhead expenses associated with the ongoing operations of the organization.
- Proposed project duration longer than 36 months.
- More than one application per primary investigator (only one proposal allowed).
For more information, visit 2022 Knowledge Challenge.
