Building Opportunities in the Urban Core

Molly Bingaman leveraged a suite of high-impact courses to turn her style consulting business into an up-and-coming, brick-and-mortar style lab. Jorge Aguilar used those courses to stop thinking like an employee and starting growing his business as an owner.

Both are graduates of the Urban Business Growth Initiative and with it are building businesses, dreams and Kansas City's urban core. 

The Urban Business Growth Initiative (UBGI) brings together key resources within the Kansas City community to create a suite of tools, classes and counseling to create jobs and support urban business growth.

UBGI ensures successful outcomes in our urban core by identifying, assessing and supporting an active pipeline of clients with diverse training opportunities and counseling. Through a strong partnership of entrepreneurial resources, UBGI provides a seamless process that is developing and strengthening business in Kansas City, Missouri’s urban core.



With 202 counseling sessions and 93 scholarships, UBGI helped its businesses generate more than $14 million in new sales and create 130 new jobs. With twice the revenue and jobs of last
year’s results, that impact shows that UBGI is doing its part to build opportunities in the urban core and help make Kansas City America’s most entrepreneurial city.

UBGI is a collaboration of KC BizCare (the City of Kansas City, Mo.’s Business Customer Service Center), the UMKC Small Business and Technology Development Center, the Procurement Technical Assistance Center, Justine PETERSEN, the Women’s Business Center and KCSourceLink. Funding for the Urban Business Growth Initiative comes from the City of Kansas City, Mo.

Download the UBGI 2015 Annual Report.