4. Impact and Funding

Impact of the innovative entrepreneur

Before you ask people to give you money or trust to pursue an IMPACT, you Need to BELIEVE in Yourself. Watch Evan Carmichael’s 14-min talk on 5 things to learn about yourself from the likes of Warren Buffet, Will Smith, and Jack Ma (remember Jack Ma? Founder of Alibaba? Billionaire who just retired to be philanthropist and to be a teacher again). Here’s the link, ’cause you have to believe in yourself before you can make an IMPACT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mlZFar2iLA

Innovations and entrepreneurial ventures are often valued according to their financial, social, technological, or educational impact. How much can a proposed venture change the world? Entrepreneurs need funding to start up and to grow their enterprise. Some funding agents only support ventures expected to have a positive social impact. You can get up-to-date news about high-impact ventures and the agents that fund them from the ImpactAlpha news site: https://impactalpha.com/

Below are examples of local impact and global impact. Follow each link as long as you like (if you don’t have much time, be choosy about what you watch, but they’re all good!). Most important part of this page is the FUNDING section after the IMPACT section.

LeBron James funds new Elementary School in Akron, Ohio

In 2018 basketball star LeBron James began funding the “I Promise” school, a new PUBLIC elementary school down the street from his old High School in Akron, Ohio. Beginning with about 250 academically-struggling 3rd and 4th graders, the LeBron James Family Foundation will provide $2 million annually until it reaches its roughly 1000 student capacity. Graduates of the school will receive free college tuition from the foundation. What’s the IMPACT? About 40% of school children in Akron live in poverty, and it’s likely that the same number will be educationally impoverished. The intended impact for this public/private foundation partnership is to address the hardest problem in American education, starting with one community. Check out this 4-minute video introducing the school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qxli4Df_Bchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qxli4Df_Bc

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Attacks Childhood Disease (and more)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent the most money and effort on health care impact outside the U.S. They’ve worked to promote research and to disseminate education and treatment on AIDS, Measles, Malaria, and more. Below are graphs showing how the Gates Foundation has been the largest contributor to these efforts. The second link is about the primacy of vaccines for children for the Gates Foundation. The IMPACTS in these videos (and the third below) are beyond what humankind has ever achieved, and it’s partially facilitated through innovative entrepreneurship!

Bill Gates’ Outlook through 2030: Philanthropy Working With Government (18 profound minutes if you have the time to listen). Insights on education and girls’ education toward the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RETFyDKcw0

Funding: How to Get Others to Pay For Your Venture

This section is critically important to understand for any startup venture. The resources below provide the guidance you need to know which options make the most sense for you and where to go to pursue those options. The first link’s main message is DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Make sure you know your market. Who needs or wants what you propose to offer? Do you have a realistic way of serving that market? The Forbes article gives you the broadest range of fundraising, including LINKS to follow for the funding options you want to explore. Karen Kobelski shares an entrepreneurial, working mom’s perspective covering a range of self-funding to big money. READ the three short articles, then pursue the links that fit your venture.

Here’s a short-and-sweet article on the steps to seek funding. While it’s focused on starting a business and not on innovation, it’s an excellent overview. The last step will be expanded below: https://articles.bplans.com/5-steps-for-entrepreneurs-with-an-idea-but-no-funding/

Here’s a Forbes article on 7 ways entrepreneurs fund their ventures by the author of the book, “The Art of Startup Fundraising.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2018/09/02/7-ways-for-entrepreneurs-to-find-investors-and-raise-millions

And here’s a very down-to-earth article by experienced entrepreneur and organizer of startups, Karen Kobelski: https://www.themuse.com/advice/show-me-the-money-7-ways-to-get-funding-for-your-business-idea

A final thought on venture funding if you work for a non-profit organization like a school, university, health or human services organization. There are many grants available from many levels and departments of government, and there are corporate and family foundations that serve specific regions and markets. All of the steps you’d take for the other funding approaches will help you pursue grant funding, too.

  • Addenda (three items that impact some entrepreneurs):
  • There are actually grants for small business startups like the NSF SBIR grants (Small Business Innovation Research). A quarter million for your first year of discovery (Phase I), followed by 3/4 million for next few years to begin implementation (Phase II). You don’t have to pay the money back. NSF finds it takes a startup about 6 years to be profitable!
  • Grant funding is particularly suitable for an entrepreneurial initiative WITHIN a larger institution like a school, university, non-profit, or municipality. In my own career within schools, universities, and non-profits, I wrote grants that contributed about $14 million to fund innovative initiatives.
  • Self funding is extremely practical for the long term. Even if you don’t inherit a tiny fortune, you can begin investing for financial growth. The stock market, for example, grows at an average of 5-to-10 percent per year. A 25-yr old beginning to invest can reliably double or triple (or more) their investments by age 35 or 40. Self-funding is the most common way entrepreneurs start off.