Causes: Economic Development

Mission: Catapult lakeland, inc. Is a place where entrepreneurs can flourish and develop ideas that result in establishing and growing businesses in the lakeland, florida area through education and mentoring opportunities. Catapult puts creative capital to work through educational and mentoring programs that: support the professional growth of entrepreneurs, artisans and emerging leaders; help entrepreneurs build and develop sustainable and viable ventures; enable the development of visionary ideas for the lakeland community; showcase entrepreneurial successes and ideas, as well as establish a platform for social interaction.

Programs: Catapult lakeland, inc. Engages and equips local entrepreneurs, artisans and emerging leaders with a variety of tools and resources to create a community that is stronger, more distinctive and sustainable. Catapult's program and operating costs are funded by private individuals, foundations and earned revenue. All programs take place in lakeland, florida.

intro to entrepreneurship - entrepreneurship training, for the rest of us. We built introduction to entrepreneurship as a business training program for aspiring entrepreneurs. We teach business fundamentals - customer development, branding essentials and basic financials, among other things - with a welcoming, hands-on and human approach. Innovation & design course our education partners polk state college, florida southern college, southeastern university, florida polytechnic university and keiser university have created an intercollegiate interdisciplinary innovation, four credit hour course to be taught at catapult. The course will be offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students from each of these educational institutions would form teams of 5-7, with 5 to 7 teams participating in the course. Teams would be selected on the basis of functional/industry interest.

catapult's mentor program facilities one-on-one relationships that are mutually beneficial to both mentor and mentee. These individual relationships result in personal and professional accomplishments for both parties. All other aspects of the program inherently support the relationship and well-rounded development of the mentee.

launch is a community based effort lead, and funded, by local financial institutions to catapult that is created to assist local entrepreneurs. Launch's goal is to help lakeland entrepreneurs take their business concept to the next level. Launch will do this by providing grants to entrepreneurs who can successfully pitch their concepts to launch's team. Pitch sessions - are held 2 to 3 times per year at catapult. Applications are available online at catapultlakeland. Com. Advisory board members attend pitch sessions, give their input in a closed-door session following the pitches and the pitch judges will vote on grant awards. The public is invited to attend pitch sessions. It's like shark tank. But with happy people.