UMKC Innovation Center

Data Measurement & Storytelling Training for Capacity Building

KCSourceLink is a program created by the University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) Innovation Center that supports entrepreneurship and small business development across the Kansas City region. It connects entrepreneurs to a network of more than 240 nonprofit Resource Partners that help new and growing businesses succeed. To build leadership capacity among the Entrepreneurial Support Organizations (ESOs) within this network, the UMKC Innovation Center launched the ESO Foundations Program in Spring 2025. (Read more about KCSourceLink)

PorchLight Insights developed and delivered a training module for the ESO Foundations Program focused on data, measurement, and storytelling. The curriculum covered topics such as fostering a data-informed culture, understanding data sources and quality, aligning data with strategic goals, performance measurement, theory of change and logic models, evaluation strategies, survey design best practices, communicating with data, and the principle of failing forward.

To complement this curriculum, PorchLight created a full suite of training materials, including lesson plans with pre-work and interactive activities, presentation slides, and facilitation guides. Co-Founders Kate Bender and Julie Steenson delivered the training to the inaugural ESO Foundations cohort in April 2025.