9/6/2012 - West Side Leader
     

HUDSON — The Burton D. Morgan Foundation recently announced grants totaling nearly $550,000 to promote entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education in the Northeast Ohio region through support of innovative programs for youth, college students and adults seeking skills and experience in starting ventures.

In announcing this latest set of grants, foundation President Deborah Hoover noted, “The grants this cycle reflect the full spectrum of programs the foundation supports for young people, college students and adults. We are gratified to witness strategic connections develop among all segments of our robust regional entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we hope these grants will contribute to the growing vibrancy around entrepreneurship in Northeast Ohio.”

Grants approved by the foundation’s trustees in June include:

• Akron Urban League — $20,000 for the Partnership for the Minority Business Accelerator IV (PMBA IV) program;

• Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron — $50,000 to support internships for graduate-level students to assist with assessment, development and commercialization of novel biomedical technologies;

• BioEnterprise — $150,000 for the Business Development and Entrepreneurial Assistance Program and the Business Associates internship program;

• Entrepreneurial Engagement Ohio — $45,000 for the SEE Economics & Entrepreneurship classroom program and the Science & Technology Forum, for high school students;

• Hiram College — $40,000 for entrepreneurship-related, co-curricular activities and resources;

• Oberlin College — $40,000 to help support entrepreneurship-related programs, specifically the Creativity Fund and the Creativity & Leadership Fellows program; and

• University School — $46,500 for Entrepreneur Institute programs, as well as outreach to students and curriculum advice and workshops for educators.

The foundation also renewed its support of the Lemonade Day Northeast Ohio youth initiative with an additional grant to University School of $20,000 to lead and coordinate the program in 2013. Lemonade Day is a free, community-wide program dedicated to teaching children how to start and operate their own businesses by creating and running a lemonade stand. For more details on the program, visit www.lemonadedayneo.org.

In addition to the grants awarded by the trustees in June, the foundation announced a number of other grants approved since last January to support local entrepreneurship programming. Among the recipients were: Boy Scouts’ Great Trail Council, for the Entrepreneurship Merit Badge program ($10,000); Learning About Business (LAB), for the 2012 LAB summer program for high school students ($10,000); TiE Ohio, for a regional high school business competition through the Veale Youth Entrepreneurship Forum; and the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds, for sponsorship of the 2012 national conference, to be held in Cleveland ($10,000).

The Burton D. Morgan Foundation is a private foundation established in 1967, whose mission is to strengthen the free enterprise system by investing in organizations and institutions that foster the entrepreneurial spirit. It was founded by entrepreneur Burton D. Morgan (1916-2003). For more information, visit www.bdmorganfdn.org.

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