Chapter also shifts funding model
By Micaela Cashman
1 Million Cups Des Moines, which hosts weekly events to connect and support the local entrepreneurial community, has welcomed in a new group of volunteer organizers. One of those new volunteers is local entrepreneur Adam Viet.
“Volunteers are often people who have been coming to 1 Million Cups for a while and have been interested in getting involved,” Viet said. “We have a lot of founders and a good variety of individuals who are interested in the startup ecosystem and want us to succeed.”
According to Ben McDougal, who is the regional representative for 1 Million Cups chapters throughout the Midwest, a volunteer tenure between six and 18 months is the right amount of time to help volunteers build skills, expand their networks and work to accelerate others.
“In graduating that group of volunteers,” McDougal said, “they’re able to continue building new initiatives in their own companies while also allowing 1 Million Cups to stay porous and allowing diversity to flow through to keep things interesting long term.”
He added that this succession plan helps volunteers avoid burnout and invites others within the community to lead.
Previously, the group received funding from local community sponsors. Moving forward, the Des Moines chapter will rely on in-kind donations and sponsorships.
The in-kind donation model is more in line with other chapters, including those in Ames, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. 1 Million Cups, which was created by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2012, has more than 100 locations nationwide.
“We were more of the outlier when we were not relying on in-kind donations,” Viet said. “Logistically, this is easier for us because we don’t have to allocate funds.”
He said 1 Million Cups can run nimbly with volunteer help, and the only physical need it has is a space for its weekly Wednesday morning meetings. Frontier Coworking, a new shared workspace in Clive, has offered its facility to the cause.
In the short time that Viet has been volunteering, he said he has seen an uptick in attendance at the Wednesday meetings, where entrepreneurs present business ideas and learn how those around them might support their growth.
Presenting entrepreneurs range drastically in their backgrounds and business ideas. Presentations can stretch from an artificial intelligence weather-tracking app to an entrepreneur building ghost-tracking hardware, Viet said.
“We get all kinds of ideas coming through here, and some that are super off the beaten path that bring in a whole new audience,” he said. “Last Wednesday, I walked in and saw five or six people I knew from Des Moines who I’ve never seen at a 1 Million Cups event.”
He said it was encouraging to see so many new people because one of the group’s goals is to grow attendance and awareness.
“Maybe what we’re doing so far is working,” he said. “Iowa and the Midwest are typically a little bit behind when it comes to startups, and this is a way we can support people who have an idea and create opportunities for them.”
Educational groups have started to attend the Wednesday morning meetings as a way to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in the next generation.
“Attending those weekly meetings allows students to feel the reality of an entrepreneurial lifestyle,” McDougal said. “Students can learn how to build their own company and come out of those meetings with experiences that transcend the classroom.”
Waukee APEX, Orbis and Avenue Scholars Des Moines are just a few of the educational programs in attendance, he said.
Viet and his fellow new volunteers are working with McDougal and the Kauffman Foundation to expand the organization beyond its weekly Wednesday events to offer more networking events, classes and investment opportunities.
“Our neighbors of Omaha and Minneapolis and Kansas City have endless events, and we want to bring that to Des Moines,” Viet said. “I get such a cool energy when I go to these events and am around other creators and big thinkers, and we really want to spread that energy to a larger entrepreneurial community.”
1 Million Cups Des Moines hosts its weekly events from 8-9 a.m. every Wednesday at Frontier Coworking, 13137 University Ave., Suite 120, in Clive.
Micaela Cashman is a freelance contributing writer for Business Record
This story has been updated to correct the source of previous funding for 1 Million Cups Des Moines.