GoodBread Innovations, in partnership with the Association of Women’s Business Centers (AWBC) and Kansas City G.I.F.T., has secured a three-year, $1.38 million grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to expand access to microloans for underserved entrepreneurs in Kansas City.
The funding will support a new program model designed to help early-stage founders who are often excluded from traditional financing. The initiative is set to launch on May 1, 2026, and will run through April 30, 2029, focusing on improving credit readiness and connecting entrepreneurs to microloans.
GoodBread Innovations developed the program model and led the grant application process. AWBC will act as the institutional grantee and fiscal sponsor, providing oversight and accountability, while Kansas City G.I.F.T. will serve as the local implementation partner, leveraging its community relationships to deliver the program on the ground.
The grant will fund personnel, technology development, capital deployment, and program evaluation. Over the three-year period, the partners will also generate data on lending access and repayment trends, aiming to demonstrate that more inclusive and thoughtfully designed financing models can drive stronger outcomes for entrepreneurs and local economies.
Kansas City G.I.F.T. brings an established track record to the initiative, having awarded more than $1.2 million in grants to 63 Black-owned businesses since 2020, contributing to job creation and significant revenue growth among recipients.
The program represents a pilot effort to validate a scalable model for improving access to capital, with the potential to expand to other markets if successful.
KEY QUOTES:
“We built GoodBread to solve a specific problem. Entrepreneurs with strong businesses and real potential are turned away from capital every day because the system was not designed for them. This grant gives us the resources to prove that a better model is possible, and to prove it in Kansas City.”
Noa Simons, CEO & Co-Founder, GoodBread Innovations
“GoodBread brought forward a program model worth backing and asked AWBC to be the institutional partner to help bring it to life. That is exactly the role we are built to play. As the national voice for women’s entrepreneurship, AWBC exists to ignite and expand access to opportunity, and this partnership is a powerful example of what that looks like in action. We are proud to support Noa and her team as they build a model that can open doors for more entrepreneurs across the country.”
Corinne Goble, CEO, Association of Women’s Business Centers
