Currents

Think about it, he said, addressing the audience at the Kauffman Uncommon Leader Visionary Award celebration.

At KC Can Compost, what otherwise might go to waste becomes an opportunity. The Kansas City-based nonprofit organization diverts organic waste from landfills for composting while helping people build skills and pathways to green industry jobs. A 2024 Kauffman Foundation Capacity Building grant is helping to bolster internal operations for long-term sustainability and to scale its Green Core Training (GCT) program.

For some Kansas City workers, the barrier may be a hiring process that makes it difficult to get a first opportunity. For others, childcare, transportation, or digital access can make it difficult to pursue training, accept a job, or stay employed. Two new Project grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation will support different approaches to addressing those challenges and creating stronger pathways to economic mobility.

The Foundation recently hired Sam Aleinikoff as director, college access and completion on the Impact team. Led by Chief Impact and Strategy Officer Allison Greenwood, Aleinikoff serves as the Foundation’s programmatic and operational strategist for its College Access and Completion area, translating our vision into an intentional and robust college access and completion funding portfolio.

The finale week of a week-long aviation camp found Nathan Abernathy, 12, stepping out of the flight simulator and into the cockpit of a Piper PA-28-181. Fellow Red Tail Academy student and licensed pilot, 17-year-old Aiden Ellison, flew Nathan over houses and roads made miniature by the elevation. Then, Nathan took the yoke – steering the plane and holding a potential future in aviation with both hands.

Entrepreneurial support leaders from 89 communities and 27 states, as well as Puerto Rico, recently convened in a surge of connection and shared purpose: to create conditions for anyone who wants to start and grow a business to be successful. 1 Million Cups (1MC) and Kauffman FastTrac (KFT), operating programs of the Kauffman Foundation, welcomed 230 attendees to its annual summit in Kansas City.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced six finalists for the inaugural Kauffman Uncommon Leader Visionary Award, recognizing executive nonprofit leaders whose work has created lasting impact across the Kansas City region.

Some of the most significant barriers to economic mobility cannot be solved by any one organization – regardless of its expertise, resources, or commitment. Challenges such as strengthening the educator workforce, expanding career pathways, or improving economic opportunity require coordinated action across sectors, sustained collaboration, and a shared commitment to long-term change. That belief is what inspired the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Collective Impact initiative.

Founder of SourceLink, KC SourceLink, and visionary leader, Maria Meyers, University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) vice chancellor of commercialization and entrepreneurship and leader of the UMKC Innovation Center, will retire during the summer of 2026. In 2003, Meyers launched KCSourceLink in collaboration with the Kauffman Foundation, UMKC, and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

An idea evolved into a heart and now, an installation at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “This idea of ‘community through common unity’ laid on my heart really, really heavy,” said Jenn Vogel, whose idea inspired the creation of KC Metro Fellowship’s 2026 Parade of Hearts submission. It came to her while she was doing rideshare services – connecting with people as she travelled with them to destinations across Kansas City. For Vogel, it became an idea in search of an outlet.