Amplifying stories from the Rochester, MN entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Mayo Clinic Awards Grant to Collider Foundation for Continued Community Support, Storytelling, and Education in Entrepreneurship.
Rochester, Minnesota: Rochester 501(c)3 nonprofit Collider Foundation was recently awarded a grant in the amount of $100,000 by the Mayo Clinic Community Contributions Program. This grant will support Collider’s work to empower Rochester’s early stage entrepreneurs, amplify the voices of Rochester’s local business starters, and provide community education.
Collider Foundation believes that the support, education, and growth of our entrepreneurial ecosystem is a pathway to a more prosperous and inclusive future for the Rochester community. As an organization, Collider Foundation aims to identify and assist local innovators in overcoming barriers to success by empowering an impactful, inclusive, and entrepreneur-first ecosystem.
Collider Foundation supports its mission through events, education, space, and storytelling to help foster an inclusive, diverse, and healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. This grant award will allow for programmatic and operational support of the foundation’s ongoing activities throughout 2022.
Collider Foundation is led by Executive Director and entrepreneurial ecosystem builder, Amanda Leightner. She is supported in her efforts by Director of Community and storyteller, Corrie Strommen. Taking the lead on Collider’s ecosystem navigation efforts is Manasseh Kambaki, President and founder of Hope Fuse, another local nonprofit organization. As a strong and passionate team, they work toward building, educating, and substantiating the vibrant community of Rochester entrepreneurs.
“Our team at Collider is beyond grateful to receive this generous support from Mayo Clinic. We look forward to continuing to foster relationships with entrepreneurs and other support organizations this year to help create a community where anyone with passion and a strong business idea sees and has access to a pathway to bring that idea forward in the community,” said Leightner.
January 31, 2022: This week in the Rochester entrepreneurial ecosystem
Welcome to another week in our entrepreneurial ecosystem!
First off, I wanted to announce that our team is now full! We were very excited to have brought on a brand new Director of Navigation, Manasseh Kambaki, to our Collider team last week! We will introduce you to him more fully over the next few weeks. But I am beyond thrilled to have Manasseh on the Collider team. He has an extremely deep history of relationship building and small business development in the city of Rochester. He has also built communities of support for many years and is the founder of Hope Fuse, a local nonprofit that explores and addresses solutions to generational poverty in Rochester youth. Manasseh will be focused on Collider's Ecosystem Navigation work, meeting 1:1 with entrepreneurs, listening to their story, and rapidly connecting them into the right resource to remove business challenges they're facing. If this sounds like a service that could be helpful to you, please contact Manasseh at manasseh@collider.mn.
Our Collider storytelling is back! Please take a few moments to learn the incredible story of Paige Jehnke, owner of Janky Gear. This is quite the story of how this Rochester native and marine engineer followed her passion to launch an outdoor consignment shop in September 2021.
And lastly, we now have a new and improved community calendar to make it easier for you to find events taking place in the Rochester ecosystem. You can access the calendar here. If you have a business event taking place in Rochester, MN that you think should be added, please email us at hello@collider.mn.
-Amanda
Join us on Thursdays to unwind, share ideas, network and support local businesses! All are welcome! Our next Happy Hour is Thursday, February 3rd at Bleu Duck Kitchen (14 4th Street SW) from 4:30-5:30.
From Marine Engineer to Consignment with Paige Jehnke
Collider is passionate about sharing the stories of Rochester entrepreneurs and small business owners! We recently had the pleasure of meeting with Paige Jehnke, owner and founder of Janky Gear, a local gear shop that sells top brand outdoor clothing and equipment on consignment, who was willing to tell us her story and share some insight on what it’s like opening a small business in Rochester.
Paige’s journey with Janky Gear, though it wouldn’t open for another 13 years, started when she graduated from Mayo High School in 2008. After graduating, she spent the summer working at a camp in Northern Minnesota, with plans to attend college in the fall in pursuit of an art history degree. But amidst her days spent taking kids outdoors, hiking, backpacking and sailing, she couldn’t shake the doubts she had about pursuing that path. During a “freak out” she decided to change course, and zip codes, in a big kind of way! For the next year, Paige worked in Alaska with at-risk youth through AmeriCorps before instead pursuing further education at the University of Alaska, majoring in Outdoor Recreation.
After her time in Alaska, Paige headed to Colorado where she worked a variety of jobs, from being a ski attendant to working on trail crews, all in her favorite field- literally anything outdoors. She had found her desired lifestyle, but she wanted it to be more sustainable. Driven by a desire for stability and health insurance, Paige returned to school, this time to become a marine engineer with the end goal of working on ships.
->Read the full store HERE
January 24, 2022: This week in the entrepreneurial ecosystem
Welcome to another week in our entrepreneurial ecosystem!
Our Collider Happy Hours are back! These meetups are now being held each Thursday from 4:30-5:30PM at different locations around Rochester, so check our Facebook page to keep up to date with the latest information. This week we'll be at ThaiPop in downtown Rochester. These Happy Hours are open to anyone in the community. We hope to see you there.
Mark your calendars for the return of the WE (Women Entrepreneurs) Forums in 2022! This group next gathers (virtually) this Thursday, January 27th from 8-9AM. The topic this month is "Finding Your People: Creating Your Support Structure." Scroll below in the newsletter for more details, but we hope that many of you can connect in for what promising to be an uplifting and informative conversation. Please register here to attend and receive the Zoom link.
And lastly, this week the City of Rochester and Destination Medical Center are hosting an event for current or aspiring African American entrepreneurs who are interested in learning more about construction opportunities in the city. This event is for anyone to learn about local business resources, understand more about the bidding process on local projects, and learn about minority business certification. Registration for the event will close tomorrow January 24th. Interested individuals should contact Jorrie Johnson by email at jjohnson@rochestermn.gov or phone at (507) 328-2016.
-Amanda
This week in your entrepreneurial ecosystem:
Join us on Thursdays to unwind, share ideas, network and support local businesses! All are welcome! Our next Happy Hour is Thursday, January 27th at ThaiPop (4 3rd Street SW)
Register here.
Upcoming Opportunities:
Ecosystem Navigation Learning Report
Collider Foundation was honored to be a 2019 recipient of an Inclusion Open grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. This two-year grant supported a pilot Ecosystem Navigator Program to provide historically under-resourced entrepreneurs in Rochester, Minnesota with the networks and frameworks to launch or scale their business in the community.
To begin this work, we performed 100 listening sessions between the fall of 2019 and winter of 2020, as part of a “discovery phase,” to better understand ecosystem gaps and to inform the work to be done through this pilot Ecosystem Navigator Program. In addition to validating a need for this work, these listening sessions suggested three groups to center the pilot: Female, Black, and Latinx entrepreneurs and starters.
Our Ecosystem Navigator Program launched in September 2020 with three passionate Ecosystem Navigators. These individuals worked to identify current or aspiring Female, Black, or Latinx entrepreneurs and to actively listen to their needs. The Navigators then rapidly connected entrepreneurs to the right business resource at the right time to overcome a barrier these individuals were facing.
From the start, this pilot program faced several barriers including trust-building, connecting with entrepreneurs and starters in the middle of a global pandemic, and creating a structure to rapidly communicate solutions to entrepreneurs.
This program met its goal to assist 50 Female, Black, or Latinx entrepreneurs in July 2021, 4 months ahead of schedule. In the end, the pilot greatly surpassed this goal, assisting 102 historically under-resourced entrepreneurs by December 2021.
Most individuals served through this program were at the idea or the scaling stage of business development, where they were running a business 5 years or less in age. A majority of these businesses were in the service industry. Top barriers faced by these starters included: connection to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, finding business education, locating technical assistance, or accessing business financing.
In total, the pilot Ecosystem Navigator Program removed or reduced a barrier for 91% of the entrepreneurs it served and had a net promoter score of 92.6. Entrepreneurs who participated in this program created at least 40 jobs in the community between October 2020 and December 2021.
In addition to these outcomes, Collider’s three main Ecosystem Navigators were also honored by Rochester’s economic development entity, Rochester Area Economic Development Inc., in November 2021 for their support and advocacy for Rochester entrepreneurs as R.A.V.E. Warriors.
This pilot work uncovered remaining gaps in the ecosystem, especially around business education for starters with multiple business ideas. To help overcome this barrier, Collider aims to bring CO.STARTERS, a proven network to help communities thrive through entrepreneurship, to Rochester in 2022.
Through the Inclusion Open funding, our 3 Ecosystem Navigators were supported for 15 hours per Navigator per month. We knew this was not enough, but it was a sufficient start to prove this program could work. This pilot uncovered a hunger for this type of service in our community. We believe that entrepreneurs and starters need even more of it to be seen, heard, and guided to help take their idea into reality or scale their current business to the next level.
The impact of this program spurred a community desire to invest further in these efforts, expanding this work from 45 technical assistance hours per month to 80 dedicated hours per month in 2022. We believe that this increased time will allow for more interactions between entrepreneurs and starters with Collider team members to continue to build trust and serve as a reputable community resource for these individuals as they pursue their business passions.
Collider is Hiring!
Collider Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that activates, connects, and empowers early stage entrepreneurs in Rochester, MN. We envision a community with zero barriers to entrepreneurship for anyone with passion and a strong business idea. Putting our entrepreneurs and small businesses first is what we do best.
Website: https://www.collider.mn/
Collider Foundation is now hiring a full time Director of Community position for our location in downtown Rochester, MN. This position serves as the front door to Collider Foundation, creating a space where people want to be, building community, amplifying stories of entrepreneurship taking place both within the ecosystem and within Collider Foundation, and being a first point of contact for Ecosystem Navigation. This position is 40 hours a week, primarily during normal business hours.
Responsibilities:
Unlocking the coworking space at the start of operations.
Maintain the day-to-day operations of the coworking space.
Maintaining relationships with coworkers and providing strong customer service to existing coworking members.
Growing the coworking revenue and number of memberships.
Schedule, assist, and maintain drop-ins
Serving as the primary Ecosystem Navigator to help historically underserved and under-resourced entrepreneurs, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC starters, in Rochester grow or scale their businesses through connection to community-based resources.
Assist in the development of any programming and services needed to assist entrepreneurs, as informed by the Ecosystem Navigation work.
Assist with data collection to gage the impact of the Ecosystem Navigation work in the community.
Uncover and interview starters and established business owners in Rochester, MN for the Rochester Rising podcast.
Produce and edit two series of Rochester Rising podcasts.
Develop and implement marketing strategies for Collider Foundation.
Maintain the social media profiles for Rochester Rising.
Prior business experience is preferred but not required. Candidates must have strong communication and organizational skills and be able to work independently and in a small team. This position also requires basic experience with Google Workspace tools. Experience with Airtable, Hubspot, or similar systems are a plus.
This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in a growing nonprofit. Additional responsibilities could be added for the right candidate.
Pay range for this position is $40,000-50,000 based on experience and qualifications.
Applications will be accepted through December 15, 2021. Interested individuals should send their resume and cover letter to hello@collider.mn.