“Main Street Ventures is all about empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs and Empower encourages all of their employees to inspire each other and live an empowered life,” says Kelly Bonnell, Executive Director of Main Street Ventures. “It’s a dynamic partnership.”
As part of this collaboration, Empower is providing MSV with a #LiveEmpowered Grant that in addition to funding, Empower will support MSV grant recipients in a variety of ways. This support includes mentorship, speaking opportunities, and connections.
● Mentorship: Empower is offering a series of office hours that allows recipients to tap into the experts of Cincinnati’s largest advertising and marketing firm. This kind of support is mutually beneficial. Emerging entrepreneurs get the advice they need to progress their business while Empower employees get inspired by new ideas and innovations. It’s a good cross pollination of knowledge sharing.
● Speaking Opportunities: Empower hosts a program called “Outside In” focused on bringing in outside perspectives into Empower to help educate, inspire and energize employees. Empower looks forward to inviting grant recipients to share their stories and business ventures with Empower. This will also serve as good practice as recipients head into future investment pitches and business meetings.
● Connections: Given Empower clients cover a range of industries like Food, Home, Retail, CPG and Health & Wellness, Empower also views this as an opportunity to help make meaningful connections for grant recipients.
“We’re committed to supporting Main Street Ventures and view this as a mutually beneficial opportunity to connect our talented team with emerging entrepreneurs,” says Jim Price, CEO at Empower, “all in the spirit of knowledge sharing, making meaningful connections and nurturing the ideas of tomorrow.”
Empower’s been a long-time supporter of start-up businesses and previously partnered with the Brandery on a disruptive media fellowship that has helped the likes of RoadTrippers, Martin and AdAdapted achieve great success. The #LiveEmpowered grant dovetails right off of this.
This partnership will be woven into the Main Street Ventures Level Up Program which has a goal of providing MSV Grant Recipients with what they need to help ensure their long-term success and maximize their impact. The support Empower is providing around mentoring, speaking opportunities, and connections will help connect MSV Grant Recipients to even more of our cities greatest assets, our people.
“We are beyond thankful for the support we have received from Empower,” says Bonnell. “Their dedication to our Grant Recipients is a perfect representation of how our local business community can support the next generation of entrepreneurs in our region.”
Main Street Ventures launched in 1999 with a focus on providing tech companies with a physical structure and wifi network. In 2010, MSV launched The Brandery, a seed-stage startup accelerator that leverages the expertise of the Cincinnati region – namely branding, marketing, and design. As the needs of the entrepreneurial ecosystem have evolved, Main Street Ventures launches new initiatives to meet the challenges of the future. For more information, visit mainstventures.org.
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