The Symposium will be held at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center (4801 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110) on Friday, May 16, 2025.
(Names of scheduled presenters to be added by April 15)
8:00-8:30AM: Breakfast (Town Square Room)
8:30-9:00AM: Welcome by representatives of Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (EMKF) and UMKC (Town Square Room)
9:00-9:50AM: Kick-Off Session—Symposium Themes (Town Square Room)
9:50-10:00AM: Break/Move to Breakout Rooms
10:00AM-12:10PM Morning Breakout Sessions (in three Breakout Rooms):
Track 1: Capital Investment in Social Enterprises
10:00-11:00 (Troost Room):
Human Capital: Innovators in Affordable Housing
Session Description: Lack of affordable housing in Kansas City and regionally is a large and complex problem. The solution will come from significant and thoughtful deployment of financial capital in many forms, but will also originate from ideas, initiatives and effort at an individual and local level: the human capital. The panel discussion will highlight the stories of organizations in the Kansas City area focused on such solutions in the often-overlapping areas of creating affordable housing stock, transitional housing and homelessness prevention, innovative construction approaches and homeownership readiness. The panelists will discuss the varying types of capital they have used or need to create and continue to scale these solutions.
11:10-12:10 (Troost Room):
Regional Housing Fund
Session Description: In late 2023, The Regional Housing partnership began designing a regional fund to address the region’s housing crisis. The outcome of that process is The Regional Housing Fund, a large capital facility that could help build, retain, or restore 25,000 affordable housing units over the next 20 years. Next month, The Regional Housing Partnership presents to the boards of several local funders to implement a $15M pilot to test the Regional Housing Fund. If successful, the fund will grow to $400M over the next two years, facilitating the building, restoring, or retaining of almost 25,000 units of affordable housing and almost 70,000 units over 20 years. The Regional Housing Fund will provide flexible, affordable capital to existing projects and local developers already building in communities across the metro area. It will also incentivize the creation of more developer talent and the adoption of new housing models, both from a built environment and financial perspective.
Track 2: Arts as Vehicles for Social Entrepreneurship
10:00-11:00 (Paseo Room):
Documentary Films with Social Purposes
Session Description: This session will focus on documentary filmmaking and film production and how this industry illuminates social issues in the Kansas City region, across the country, and internationally. The panelists in this session have created documentaries and produced films that use storytelling and journalism to inform consideration of reforms in law and policy, and to energize positive change in communities across the world. These panelists will discuss how their work raises awareness around social issues, encourages investment in communities, and aids in solving issues that impact marginalized communities. Using examples of their productions and delivery methods, including in-person screening of their films, the panelists hope to inspire others to embrace the capacity of documentary films to draw people who may have opposing views together, provide them with relevant information, and encourage them to channel their shared humanity into conversations in spaces that afford debate and seek solutions for the common good.
11:10-12:10 (Paseo Room):
Showcase of KC Area Artist-Social Entrepreneurs
Session Description: The Kansas City region enjoys an impressive and growing array of artists and artist-entrepreneurs. This session will showcase several KC area artist-social entrepreneurs who produce art, individually or in collaborative teams, including public art, that in addition to its intrinsic value to society as creative work, is designed to advance social purposes for the benefit of communities in the region.
Track 3: Effects of AI on Civic and Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
10:00-11:00 (Brush Creek Room):
Effects of AI on Nonprofit Organizations
Session Description: The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence presents nonprofits with new opportunities to transform their operations and enhance impact, yet it also raises important concerns about ethical use, risk management, and governance. This panel will share takeaways from a series of workshops held by KC Digital Drive exploring how local nonprofits are using generative AI technologies and developing internal policies for responsible AI implementation. The presentation will be followed by a discussion with representatives from local community organizations who will share their experiences implementing AI solutions and their approaches to addressing ethical considerations, risks, and internal policy development.
11:10-12:10 (Brush Creek Room):
Effects of AI on State & Local Government
Session Description: Artificial Intelligence, including rapidly evolving “Generative AI,” are impacting all sectors of society. This session features a panel with extensive experiences in or with state and local government initiatives on interactions with emerging technologies generally and with data governance and AI in particular. In this session, they will share information and perspectives on both uses of AI by government in providing public services and in developing policies to regulate private sector uses of AI in their jurisdictions, and encourage attendees to participate in discussions of both managing potential risks of AI deployments and pursuing opportunities to utilize AI to produce public benefits.
12:10AM-1:10PM: Lunch and Networking Opportunities
1:20-3:30PM: Afternoon Breakout Sessions (in three Breakout Rooms):
Track 1: Capital Investment in Social Enterprises
1:20-2:20 (Troost Room):
Current Pathways to Accessing Capital for Social Enterprises
Session Description: When trying to attract capital to their enterprise, social entrepreneurs generally work across two different types of sources, each with generally two additional subsets within them. The first category consists of government/public sources and private sources. Within each of these – and, thus, the second/subset category – are those who, to varying degrees, pay attention to the social good that a business is pursuing and those that do not. How you structure and operate your business matters, whether using the rarely used still relatively new hybrid legal structures, modified versions of those or traditional forms (including nonprofit but not tax exempt!), or tandem (i.e., subsidiaries, affiliates, joint ventures). We’ll cover each of these with a focus on how various concepts are used to modify structures towards socially good ends. We’ll also discuss the state of cases and executive orders involving funding sources that are public (e.g., Small Business Administration § 8(a), Minority Business Development Agency, Community Development Funding Institutions) and private (e.g., Program Related Investments, including “impact” investors and grants/contracts.
2:30-3:30PM (Troost Room):
Exit Through the Breakroom: How Wall Street Can Help Mainstreet through Employee-Ownership
Session Description: Identifying sources of mission-aligned capital is a persistent issue for social entrepreneurs. Foundations, impact investors, banks, friends, and family are not always reliable sources. However, social entrepreneurs often overlook an already committed source of capital, their employees. Employees-ownership is often thought of a one-way benefit for the employees, which it is, but it can also be a source of patient capital with intimate working knowledge of the company’s operations and strategic objectives. However, there are barriers to bringing in employees as investors, owners, and partners. The major barrier is financing the investment as employees rarely have the cash on hand to pay for their interest in the company. This session explores the financial viability and legal feasibility of a novel investment fund that would specifically focus on transitioning closely held businesses into employee ownership.
Track 2: Arts as Vehicles for Social Entrepreneurship
1:20-2:20 (Paseo Room):
Gaming/Gamification with Social Purposes
Session Description: This session will provide background on the long history of gaming and gamification in society and then focus on current applications of gaming and digital storytelling as engines of social entrepreneurship in the Digital Age. The panelists will share perspectives, experiences, and illustrative examples on such subjects as the design and creation of virtual learning and doing environments, game-based educational and support systems, game-based collaborative storytelling, and gamification to facilitate community-based collaborations.
2:30-3:30 (Paseo Room):
Supporting the Work of Artist-Social Entrepreneurs: Resources & Networks
Session Description: Learn about resources and networks to support artists and arts organizations with their entrepreneurial needs. This panel will feature local art helping organizations that have opportunities available for artists and arts organizations to receive assistance.
Track 3: Effects of AI on Civic and Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
1:20-2:20 (Brush Creek Room):
Effects of AI on Education
Session Description: Generative AI is rapidly transforming both teaching and learning in higher education. For educators, generative AI provides efficiencies in course planning and communication, preparation of learning materials and activities, and even evaluation of student work product. Likewise, for students, generative AI can be a powerful learning coach and study partner. However, reliance on the tool can lead to degradation of critical thinking and communication skills. This panel will explore how educators can help their students thread this needle.
2:30-3:30 (Brush Creek Room):
Recent Developments on AI Legislation/Proposed Legislation
Session Description: Deployments of new technologies and new combinations of pre-existing technologies present formidable challenges to legislatures responsible for developing laws that both serve and protect the public. The challenges associated with the rapidly accelerating development of new AI and Generative AI capabilities are particularly complex and potentially impactful across all sectors of society. The panelists in this session will explore several examples of federal and state legislative activity in the U.S., and in other countries regarding AI/GenAI and invite the audience to share their reactions to those examples and their perspectives on the policy considerations that should shape AI legislation.
We are committed to making the Symposium affordable. To request a financial need-based registration fee waiver or discount please send an email to
Questions? Email Tony Luppino or call 816.235.6165.
