EmPOWERED Innovation Academy
Brands that know their mission, live.
Brands that live their mission, lead.
In an interview with Inc. Magazine, Deloitte Chairman Punit Renjen said that articulating and communicating your purpose isn’t as easy as it sounds. “You have to really understand the essence of why you exist,” he says. “In addition to crafting a mission statement, it also involves embedding the purpose into the entire organization.” Chris Groscurth from Gallup also shared research comparing the performance levels of companies that were mission-driven and those that were not.
You are motivated, want to make a difference. You may even be a seasoned leader of an organization that has a proven track record of success. Yet, you may also feel stagnated and growth has flattened. This section will give you the tools and methods to reconnect with your mission, and re-energize yourself, your team and the community.
“Impossible
is potential.
Impossible
is nothing.”
—Muhammad Ali
Latest News and Updates
BUSINESS ACCELERATOR PROGRAM
March 1 – The Minnesota Accelerator application period opens
May 1 – The National Accelerator application period opens
Course Library
Explore advanced training curated for social impact entrepreneurs and nonprofits.
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Refine, Test and Prove Your Business’s Focus
A clear understanding of the problem you want to solve will help you determine the right goals to target and the factors and conditions required to determine success.
What You’ll Learn:
Understand how to refine, test and prove the solution to a problem you’ve identified.
A framework for asking the right questions to support the logic behind why your company exists
Discover Your Moonshot
Moonshot thinking refers to choosing a huge, seemingly insurmountable problem and proposing a radical solution to that problem using disruptive technology.
What You’ll Learn:
Understanding the power and importance of moonshots
Reviewing successful moonshots
Building a 10-word moonshot statement
Understanding Business Models (Advanced)
Building a home requires a blueprint, ensuring that each element of that home lasts and can withstand the elements of time. Your business model is like a blueprint to help you combine the right components to ensure your investment is soundly managed and grows.
What You’ll Learn:
How to build a customer journey map
Your Go-to-Market Strategy (GTM)
Your profit model
Key drivers of profitability
The top 10 business models
Your Brand’s Story
The brand’s story works in two ways:
1. To quickly convey what you do.
2. To concisely convey why the market should trust you.
Learn how to build a brand story that builds trust and finds customers.
What You’ll Learn:
Understand and choose your brand type.
Build a brand experience that supports your brand type.
Tips for owning the room and being center-stage ready
Your Customer’s Story
Your customer’s story is complicated. As you look at ways to connect with them, understanding their journeys provides you with critical data to connect the dots between what you offer and what they need.
What You’ll Learn:
Understand how to unlock and analyze qualitative data.
Expand the vision beyond the customer to their environment for additional context.
Craft the customer’s story.
Your Product’s Story
A product or service can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique.
Find or keep your competitive edge in the market by thinking outside of the box and challenge your thinking about your current product’s design.
What You’ll Learn:
Using design thinking methodologies, you’ll be guided through an iterative process to test and improve your business’s focus.
Build low-fidelity and high level prototypes to test your theory.
How to host a stakeholder review to gather data
Craft (or sharpen) a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) statement.
Business Finance Basics
This section aims to help you understand how to maximize the value of a business through effective financial planning, resource management, and finance growth while always being mindful of risk and profitability.
What You’ll Learn:
Balance Sheet Basics
Income Statement Basics
Profit and Loss Basics
Tips for Getting Your Financial House in Order
Level Up Your Fundraising II
This section will teach you the various options for selecting the appropriate funding vehicles for your business model.
What You’ll Learn:
Bootstrapping
Angel investing
Fundraising for nonprofits
Small-business grants: Where to find free money
Participating in the ETS accelerators or the SIFs
Promotion & Publicity II
To survive and grow your business, you need customers. To get customers, you need to promote your business. From your website to social media, there are plenty of creative, low-cost, free methods to get the word out and generate buzz to attract customers.
What You’ll Learn:
How to leverage your website
Where to find your customers
How to be a trusted advisor and influencer in your market
Tips for where to promote yourself
Your Impact Story
Discover and craft the data-driven story of your organization’s programs and services impact on communities. Deliver that story in ways that increase support, engagement, and repeat funding.
What You’ll Explore:
Learn key concepts in crafting your organization’s impact measurement strategies and results framework.
Data-driven storytelling
Collect data in ways that directly support your organization’s impact strategies and its intended results.
Engage with stakeholders, collect and evaluate their feedback in appropriate and productive ways.
Ask the right questions to help you deliver the right evidence-based impact.
Tips for affordable and accessible tools for finding, monitoring, and capturing data
The Role of Public Policy
Big ideas can be more significant when your innovation affects not just the symptoms of the problem but the foundation of the problem itself. This section introduces ways to add a public policy strategy to your vision so that your innovation can further affect positive, measurable societal change.
You’ve Got This!
It takes guts to bring an idea to life. Start by celebrating that fact! However, if this venture is new for you, you’re probably walking into unknown territory, which can be stressful. This is your corner dedicated to helping your exhale, reconnect with the joy of the pursuit of making the impossible happen.
What You’ll Explore:
Grit
Imposter Syndrome
Failure
High performance
Physical strength
Mental strength
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