Mayo Clinic Awards Grant to Collider Foundation

Collider Foundation was recently awarded a grant by Mayo Clinic through their Community Contributions Program. This grant will support Collider’s ongoing work to empower early stage entrepreneurs throughout Rochester, Minnesota. Collider Foundation aims to identify and assist local innovators in overcoming barriers to success by empowering an impactful, inclusive, and entrepreneur-first ecosystem. This grant award will allow for programmatic and operational support of the foundation’s ongoing activities throughout 2024.

Collider Foundation supports its mission through events, education, a coworking space, and storytelling for the community to help foster an inclusive, diverse, and healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. Collider is a grassroots organization that started as a for-profit coworking space in 2016. While passionate about the community they were creating through coworking, the Collider team found the greatest value they were bringing to the table was education, mentorship, and storytelling for Rochester entrepreneurs. Collider was reborn as a nonprofit in 2019, with a mission to serve our community’s early stage entrepreneurs and make entrepreneurship more approachable and accessible, particularly for those who face the greatest barriers to business ownership. 

Today Collider provides 1:1 startup support to early stage entrepreneurs, a framework for business development through low-cost education, a supportive community work environment, and a platform for the stories of local entrepreneurs. Collider Foundation believes that the support, education, and growth of our entrepreneurial ecosystem is a pathway to a more prosperous and inclusive future for the Rochester community. 

“We are so grateful for the continued support of our work by Mayo Clinic. Entrepreneurship and support of entrepreneurs is a community wide effort to diversify our local economy and see new solutions brought to market. Support such as this from Mayo Clinic allows us to continue our efforts in a sustainable manner to keep our work free or low cost and help entrepreneurial dreams turn into those real solutions in our local community,” said Amanda Leightner, Collider Foundation Executive Director. 

If you have any questions about Collider Foundation or our work within the community, please contact Amanda Leightner at amanda@collider.mn or call (507) 722-0306.