About KCE

Mission: To promote an enhanced quality of life for citizens of Kansas communities through education, leadership development, and recognition.

Vision: Vibrant Communities with a Positive Future.

The Kansas Community Empowerment program (KCE) administered by K-State Research and Extension, formerly the Kansas PRIDE program, is a volunteer, grassroots effort to improve the quality of life in local communities. Each Kansas community is unique and shares a common bond: a rich heritage based on self-reliance and community pride.

Kansas Community Empowerment is dedicated to serving communities across the state to encourage and assist local government and volunteers in growing and supporting their community improvement efforts.

Through the program, local communities identify what they would like to preserve, create, or improve for their future. Then, working with the resources of K-State Research & Extension and the Kansas Department of Commerce, community volunteers pull together to create their ideal community future.

K-State Research and Extension, the Kansas Masons, the Kansas Department of Commerce, and Kansas PRIDE, Inc. (made up of private sector companies and associations, and community member representatives) partner together to make the KCE program successful.

Since 1970, the Kansas Community Empowerment program (formerly Kansas PRIDE program) has encouraged communities to prepare for the future by building on their past and forming a vision of what they hope to preserve, maintain and create. The goal of the program is to help maximize community and economic development efforts by encouraging all groups to coordinate and work collaboratively for community betterment.