Our Work
Facebook Elevate
Over the next three years, Facebook will reach 1 million members of the Black community and 1 million members of the Latinx community through Facebook Elevate, which provides free training in the digital skills they need to succeed, from setting up an online presence to creating marketing materials and more.
Griforce supports the strategy & operations of Facebook Elevate.
Impact
Facebook Elevate will reach 1 million members of the Black community and 1 million members of the Latinx community by 2023.
Facebook Career Connections
Workforce development program connecting minority-owned businesses with Facebook-trained college students.
Gritforce has supported Facebook Career Connections since the pilot of the program.
Impact
Facebook Career Connections has created over 100 new jobs for high-need college students, and trained hundreds of students in critical workforce development skills.
Facebook Career Connections has served communities in Arkansas and New Mexico, and will continue expanding across the U.S.
Right to Start
Right to Start is a campaign to rebuild the American economy by putting entrepreneurs first by changing minds, policies, and communities. We seek to build a national civic infrastructure for the new economy that unleashes entrepreneurial opportunity.
Gritforce has supported Right to Start’s strategy and operations since the organization’s inception.
Impact
In just the two months since its July 2020 unveiling, the campaign was named by acclaimed journalist James Fallows of The Atlantic as one of “Three Guides to the Next America”
The organization launched a “Field Guide for Policymakers” to create a path forward from our current economic crisis.
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Million Cups
Developed by the Kauffman Foundation, 1 Million Cups is a free national event designed to educate, engage, and connect entrepreneurs.
Gritforce Founder Kim Lane manages 35 chapters of 1 Million Cups in five states: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas; in addition to onboarding all 1 Million Cups organizers nationwide.
Impact
1 Million Cups has about 1,100 organizers, who reach 11,000 entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs every week.
In 2020, Lane collaborated with colleagues at the Kauffman Foundation to invent and design a board game, the “1MC Game of Life,” to encourage 1 Million Cups Organizers nationwide to develop solutions to challenging, real-life scenarios relating to diversity, equity, inclusion and creating a “safe space” for all entrepreneurs.
Global Entrepreneurship Network
Building one global, entrepreneurial ecosystem, GEN connects entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, policymakers and more.
Gritforce Founder Kim Lane serves as a Senior Advisor for the Global Entrepreneurship Network.
Impact
Lane has advised advised communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nepal, and St. Lucia
Lane has served as a U.S. Delegate to the Global Entrepreneurship Congresses in Johannesburg, South Africa; Istanbul, Turkey; and Manama, Bahrain
Lane partnered with Junior Achievement Arkansas to create High School Startup Day, whose success was later replicated through the Global Entrepreneurship Network, with her championing, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It enabled Congolese students in an extremely challenging job market to go from job seekers to job creators.