Blog

The Kansas Community Investment Fund (KCIF) was launched in 2019 as a three-year, gap-financing initiative to tackle health equity issues Kansans are facing. The ideas we tried and changed were essential to progress and created a framework driven by a vision.

Camp Destination Innovation, in partnership with NetWork Kansas, is gearing up for the 2nd annual Kansas Youth Virtual Entrepreneurship Challenge. This event is designed to engage youth, spark innovation, and creativity in a time of social distancing, for a chance to win cash prizes.

The Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge (KEC) State Championship, hosted by the Kansas State University Center for the Advancement of Entrepreneurship, and sponsored by the Kansas Masonic Foundation, took place virtually on April 27th and awarded high school entrepreneurs with over $20,000 in prize money. This statewide competition featured high school and middle school students from 46 communities in Kansas.

NetWorked Partnership for Community Investment seeks to provide a model that connects community development organizations, community foundations, economic development organizations, entrepreneurship support organizations, health foundations, health organizations and minority-led organizations through convenings.

“This grant provides Reno County with necessary medical services that have not been easily accessible for many in our community,” said Jackson Swearer, Entrepreneur Navigator and Program Director at StartUp Hutch. “It also brings another business to occupy a previously vacant building in Hutchinson and grow our community."

NetWork Kansas’ Entrepreneurship (E-) Community Partnership announces the conclusion of the 2020-2021 Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge (YEC) Series. During the 2020-2021 academic year, 898 students from 46 Kansas communities participated in 44 local entrepreneurship competitions.

NetWork Kansas’ Entrepreneurship (E-) Community Partnership announces outstanding teachers who have been involved in the Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge Series since the beginning of the program and/or made outstanding efforts to engage students in youth entrepreneurship.

"We’re incredibly grateful for the local support of the Morris County E-Community, GMDC and Farmers and Drovers Bank,” said Lindsay Gant, co-owner of Riverbank Brewing. “This funding helps our dream of creating a new business that contributes to the economic growth in our rural community come to fruition. We have such a passion for community engagement and connection; we’re excited for Riverbank Brewing to add to that.”

Less than one year after launching a comprehensive online entrepreneurship fair and business competition plan software for Kansans, NetWork Kansas announces the software's national expansion.

TOPEKA – Governor Laura Kelly today announced that funding provided to Kansas’ hospitality industry through the Hospitality Industry Relief Emergency (HIRE) Fund has been converted from bridge loans to grants.