Heartland Together: Marshalltown
Entrepreneurship for Inclusive Prosperity
About
Overview
Welcome to Heartland Together, an initiative dedicated to strengthening communities by promoting local entrepreneurship!
This Campaign aims to mobilize community members like you to take action to create a more welcoming environment for entrepreneurs in Marshalltown. Whether you're passionate about small businesses, entrepreneurs, or simply want to see your community flourish, there's a place for everyone to participate.
The adaptive challenge at the heart of this Campaign is building a robust support system for entrepreneurs. This encompasses various related challenges, including:
- Promoting collaboration between organizations that support entrepreneurs
- Improving understanding of entrepreneurs' needs
- Helping organizations that support entrepreneurs to better understand and support underserved populations
- Increasing awareness and connectivity to available entrepreneur services
- Encouraging more community members to recognize their stake in entrepreneurship
We know that each community member brings a unique perspective and can influence these challenges in their own meaningful way. That's why we need all of you, and the people you'll engage, to be involved in this effort!
Thank you for joining us on this journey. Together, let's foster a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in Marshalltown!
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Micro-grants
All Heartland Together Action Teams have the opportunity to apply for a micro-grant, providing crucial support for initiatives aimed at driving progress in their local entrepreneurial ecosystems. Each action project is eligible to receive up to $1500 in funding. Whether it's launching a new program, organizing events, or implementing a community outreach initiative, these micro-grants offer financial assistance to turn your vision into reality.
-
Micro-grants
All Heartland Together Action Teams have the opportunity to apply for a micro-grant, providing crucial support for initiatives aimed at driving progress in their local entrepreneurial ecosystems. Each action project is eligible to receive up to $1500 in funding. Whether it's launching a new program, organizing events, or implementing a community outreach initiative, these micro-grants offer financial assistance to turn your vision into reality.
Details
Sponsored by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
- Campaign timeline
- Jan 11 – Apr 11, 2024
- Project deadline
- Apr 11, 2024
Action Projects
Researching what programs and partnerships already exist for minority start up companies that we may be able to tap in to in our community.
Goal: Host a diagnoses event with Latino existing businesses, prospective entrepreneurs, and home based businesses to identify barriers and hinderances to start...
Clear understanding on people who want to start a business or existing business owners on theirs challenges.
Dashboard
- Collaborators
- 17
- Projects Created
- 9
- Total Investment
- $1,500
- People impacted
- 375
| Name | Location | Collaborators | Investment | People impacted | Created |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action Project | – | 3 | $0 | 5 | |
| Elevate Youth | – | 2 | $0 | 40 | |
| Expand Your Dining Experience! | – | 3 | $0 | 40 | |
| Jacque, Mike and Neil’s Action Project | – | 1 | $0 | 150 | |
| Latino Entrepreneurship Guide | – | 1 | $0 | 10 | |
| Lucy’s Action Project | – | 1 | $0 | 0 | |
| Lucy’s Action Project | – | 1 | $0 | 0 | |
| One on One Interview Project | – | 2 | $1,500 | 30 | |
| We all have a story to tell - Heidi, Brit, Steve | – | 3 | $0 | 100 |
AI summary of the biggest barriers to progress
- Conduct thorough, community-specific needs assessments and inventory existing resources to map assets and gaps.
- Prioritize cross-sector collaboration, linking schools with local business owners and involving key partners (Chamber, MCBD, IASBDC, MCC, IAEDA) with clearly defined roles.
- Address gaps in communication infrastructure by establishing a centralized ecosystem and a single owner to coordinate resources, information gathering, and consistent messaging across partners.
- Invest in relationship-building as a core, time-intensive activity (one-on-one conversations) to build trust and reduce fear of “getting it wrong.”
- Emphasize cultural competence and inclusivity, recognizing and addressing cultural comfort barriers and interest in engaging non-traditional or underground networks.
- Tackle access and inclusion barriers by understanding community limitations and designing approaches that broaden participation and equitable access.
AI summary of learnings
- Prioritize deep needs discovery of the target audience to ground project scope and actions.
- Design experiential events with built-in retention and follow-up strategies to convert first-time participants into repeat visitors.
- Break down silos by enabling transparent, frequent digital collaboration across teams (e.g., Teams, Slack) to improve communication and alignment.
- Adopt Agile/lean practices with short, bite-sized sprints (e.g., 2 weeks) and regular reviews to deliver incremental value and pivot as needed.
- Establish formal feedback loops and measurable outcomes to inform iterations and improvements.
- Align initiatives around an end-to-end customer journey, connecting discovery, experience, and ongoing engagement for cohesive impact.