What we learned from FATE

Birthday Weekday #3

We love community outreach as much as we love sharing news and information.

Afterall, how can we serve our communities if we’re not active within them?

VNN’s Birthday Week continues with one of our community outreach highlights of the past year.

Our “From Adversity To Entrepreneurship” Learning Series was born from our experience working with local entrepreneurs and covering stories of adversity.

What does the path of adversity to entrepreneurship look like? What are the benefits? What are the barriers? 

We teamed up with Big if True from May to August 2022 to find out. 

We’re accepting birthday donations all this week! Will you help us hit $500?

VNN held two-in person learning series events, one in Tulsa (Oklahoma’s second largest city) and one in Okmulgee (a rural city). 

In our big city, we found that entrepreneurship is a great fit for people who don’t fit the 9 to 5 mold and a lot of entrepreneurship resources were available.

Read the full story about our Tulsa event here.

In our rural city, we found that many people still struggled with basic needs. A big barrier for self-sustainability through entrepreneurship.

Read the full story about our Okmulgee event here.

Big If True is producing three in-depth reports to provide context for this series, specifically what factors contribute to certain groups struggling with adversity today. Women and Indigenous people, for instance. 

VNN also conducted two online surveys, the results of which are now live on our FATE learning series page.

Thank you so much to our local sponsors, and especially the Native American Journalists Association who, in partnership with Oklahoma Media Center, funded this project. 

We hope that entrepreneurs, business leaders, and public officials take this learning and not only build on it but create real change and new opportunities based on our community feedback.