The Pete Du Pont Freedom Foundation Llc

The equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem (e3) initiative is driven by the foundation's focus on removing barriers to innovation and its strong belief that great ideas and entrepreneurship can occur throughout society. E3 is an ambitious initiative with the goal of becoming delaware's leading entrepreneurial incubator and accelerator by creating an innovative ecosystem that identifies, nurtures, and ultimately leads to successful businesses for delaware's future. E3 compliments and works in tandem with reinventing delaware in working to create the conditions for successful entrepreneurs and innovators across all communities with a particular focus on underrepresented entrepreneurs. E3 attempts to build city-wide strategic coalitions designed to identify, vet, incubate and accelerate the launch of new businesses.

Capacity building: supported by a grant from longwood foundation, the foundation aims to expand its reach by enlarging and expanding its programs.

The pete du pont freedom foundation serves as an entrepreneurial incubator by providing a platform for individuals to present ideas that will create jobs and improve delaware. Through its "reinventing delaware" program which began in 2014, the public, foundation members, supporters and the business community submit ideas to the foundation for consideration. Idea submitters are invited to present their ideas at an annual dinner event, which includes key members of the delaware business and leadership communities. In total, 100 individuals attend the event and present their ideas. The foundation provides top idea presenters from the reinventing delaware dinner the opportunity the refinement, development and mentoring services in partnership with third party facilitators, spotlight articles in the delaware business times (online and print), promotion and visibility through foundation social media and website exposure, professionally produced video spotlights for the program finalists, exhibition opportunity at the annual pete du pont freedom award event for program finalists, and a monetary award for the idea that can make the most impact on delaware.

Hbcu innovative solutions initiative - the foundation partnered with the bank of america and delaware state university to integrate their reinventing program and process into the 13th annual philanthropy symposium, which hosts over 30 hbcu representatives from across the country. A $100,000 grant was received in 2022 to launch the initiative in july 2023. A committee held a meeting to review all of the idea proposals submitted for the initiative and selected nine to move forward to the first phase of the process to receive in-kind consulting support valued at up to $5,000 per proposal. The committee reconvenes to select four finalists who will receive an additional suite of in-kind support valued at up to $20,000 each. Finally the committee will select one winner to receive a $10,000 cash grant to continue to move the idea forward. The winner will be announced at the 14th annual philanthropy symposium.

The reinventing delaware program serves as an entrepreneurial incubator by providing a platform for individuals to present ideas that will create jobs and improve delaware. The public, the foundation's members and supporters and the business community are encouraged to submit ideas for consideration.