Title
Authorization to Amend Ordinance S-51289 Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation Venture Café Sponsorship
Description
This report requests the Economic Development and the Arts Subcommittee recommend City Council approval of an amendment to Ordinance S-51289 for the sponsorship of Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation’s Venture Café Phoenix Events Programming on the Phoenix Bioscience Core (PBC) in the amount of $200,000 annually for three years, for a total amount not to exceed $600,000. There is no impact to the General Fund. Funding is available in the Genomics Facilities and Operations Fund.
THIS ITEM IS FOR CONSENT ACTION.
Report
Summary
Launched in 2022, Venture Café Phoenix is a collaborative initiative to bring people of all backgrounds together with a shared vision of building and sustaining and inclusive community that champions innovation in Arizona. To date, this has been accomplished through weekly gatherings of meaningful events that connect, inspire, and encourage participants to take positive action and support one another’s goals. Venture Café Phoenix is a community-driven movement to unleash local and state-wide potential and make Phoenix a leader in innovation.
Since its inception, Venture Café Phoenix's event programming has facilitated 157 weekly events that resulted in over 1,097 break-out sessions with over 20,400 attendees, over 960 speakers, and an average weekly attendance of 160. The highest attended Thursday Gatherings have ranged from 225 to 340 attendees. One-on-one mentorship and office hours with subject matter experts are now available for attendees. Venture Café Phoenix's weekly events encourage connectivity and collaboration and serve to enhance Phoenix’s ecosystem and infrastructure to support the growth of existing Phoenix companies, both in early-stage development and mature organizations, along with the formation of new companies leading to the creation of new jobs for Phoenix residents. Venture Café Phoenix has been an instrumental platform for showcasing Phoenix's domestic and international economic development efforts in bioscience, sustainability, advanced manufacturing and other synergistic industries and was awarded 2023 Fastest Growing Venture Café “Making Things Happen Award” by Venture Café Global.
Venture Café Phoenix was modeled after the successful Thursday Gatherings of Venture Café programs taking place in Wexford Science+Technology innovation communities that have served to grow and strengthen the innovation districts in those respective communities. Venture Café Phoenix events are free, open to the public, and serve to connect attendees to employers, innovators, academic educators/researchers, business mentors, and the community. Presentations and breakout sessions are purposely curated to support the community’s connectivity, collaborations, talent and workforce development, business strengthening and access to resources. Venture Café strengthens Phoenix’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and enhances the City's Bioscience Healthcare Strategic Initiative.
Venture Café Phoenix plans to host approximately 40 Thursday Gatherings annually with an annual goal of more than 6,000 attendees who will all convene on the City’s Phoenix Bioscience Core, elevating its visibility as a premier location for companies to locate for bioscience research, collaboration, and access to talent. Venture Café Phoenix is hosted at the 850 PBC building and includes benefits such as:
- Serving as a convening hub of innovators from the region.
- Elevating the PBC’s brand as a premier location for bioscience-related companies and Phoenix’s robust bioscience ecosystem.
- Increasing partnerships between and among the City, academia, industry, the startup ecosystem, arts and culture.
- Facilitating international connections via the Innovation Bridge programming with visiting business delegations.
- Curating meaningful events that connect, inspire/encourage participants to take positive action.
- Prioritizing participation and support of attendees with marginalized identities.
- Enhancing infrastructure for research, education, entrepreneurship, arts and culture.
- Providing access to one-on-one mentoring with subject matter experts.
- Bringing entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, artists, designers, corporate innovators, technologists, community members together to find commonalities, share knowledge from different perspectives, forge partnerships, and explore opportunities for collaborations.
The City’s original Founders Circle sponsorship has proven to be very successful in engaging with Phoenix’s innovation community. The increased level of sponsorship to a Legacy Founders sponsorship will provide the City with heightened visibility and engagement, increased program planning and direct messaging to attendees to further the City’s economic development position as setting the standard for advanced technology innovators to thrive.
The Legacy Founders Sponsorship will include at a minimum:
- Two seats on the Leadership Council.
- Premier logo placement on Venture Café’s website and newsletters with recognition as the sole Legacy Founders sponsor.
- Recognition at all events, including announcements at beginning and end of event programs.
- Inclusion in marketing material, social media, and Venture Café Phoenix’s weekly newsletter.
- Monthly City of Phoenix economic development short article in the weekly newsletter.
- Two City of Phoenix pop up banners at each event.
- Program planning for six events with the option for more to include programming around visiting international delegations and industry conferences.
- Dedicated Legacy Founders slide with City of Phoenix logo on monitor rotation for programming during events.
The increased sponsorship level will allow staff to be more actively engaged in the planning and attending of events to pursue opportunities for business recruitment, retention and expansion, and introductions to workforce development services and programs.
The organizational framework will include the Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation as the host institution along with providing programming, financial management, and staff support. Venture Café will provide the City with an annual report of metrics of attendance, voluntarily collected demographics of attendees, qualitative and quantitative information from surveys, and engagement metrics.
Financial Impact
The fee for a Legacy Founders sponsorship is $200,000 annually, with a three year total amount not to exceed $600,000. There is no impact to the General Fund. Funding is available in the Genomic Facilities and Operations Fund.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager John Chan and the Community and Economic Development Department.