ESHIP Alliance Charter

Advance entrepreneurial ecosystem building as a valued practice, a trusted profession, and a model for economic health and community well-being in the United States.

Expand entrepreneurial opportunities for all, making local, regional, and national economies more resilient, equitable, and vibrant.

The ESHIP Alliance brings together a growing national network of organizations and people to advance entrepreneurial ecosystem building as a widely recognized professional practice. 

Our alliance equips community leaders across networks and sectors with the knowledge, resources, and connections to strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Entrepreneurship creates opportunity, innovation, and community prosperity by creating jobs and wealth. But entrepreneurs don’t thrive alone—they need strong, supportive communities around them. These ecosystems can’t be bought; they must be built. When nurtured intentionally, they form a foundation for inclusive economic growth.

As an emerging practice, entrepreneurial ecosystem building is the most effective way to support entrepreneurs while strengthening communities and tackling many of our most pressing economic and social challenges. 

Ecosystem building represents the next wave of economic development – an inclusive, community-driven strategy to transform local economies. With growing momentum and resources nationwide, we’re at a tipping point for broader impact. Yet this approach won't achieve the widespread impact it promises without shared standards, common language, better metrics, proven practices, and stronger infrastructure. 

To unlock its full potential, we must build our professional field as intentionally as we build the ecosystems themselves. A stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem building field will enable more successful entrepreneurs in more places, leading to more thriving communities nationwide.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem building practitioners are a diverse and growing group of professionals from many sectors and backgrounds who work to build communities where entrepreneurs can thrive. As connectors, conveners, and catalysts, they help entrepreneurs access resources, build networks, and navigate systems. Whether civic leaders, nonprofit professionals, educators, investors, government officials, community builders, or entrepreneurs themselves, they share a commitment to collaboration and long-term, bottom-up, community-led change. 

We welcome all who practice, support, or want to learn ecosystem building and invite those who believe this work deserves recognition, resources, and professional support.

We build the field by empowering and connecting ecosystem building practitioners and the growing network of more than one hundred organizations that support them, to better serve entrepreneurs and their communities. 

We co-create with two core audiences: 

1. Entrepreneurial ecosystem building practitioners working in communities.
   

2. National Ecosystem Building Resource Providers (NRPs) that offer nationally available programs, training, tools, or funding to support practitioners’ success.

We help practitioners access resources, learning spaces, and opportunities to develop the mindsets, skills, and networks needed to lead change in their communities.

We help NRPs connect with practitioners by providing field-level insight, aligned partnerships, and opportunities to expand their reach, relevance, and impact.

Through our alliance—a network of networks—we build relationships and advance projects to expand knowledge, share tools, and deepen understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystems. 

We collaborate and convene to identify shared challenges, curate resources, refine practices, and co-develop solutions. We embrace continuous learning and feedback and ground our work in data, evidence, and sound theory.

We operate as an Impact Network, an approach that blends relationship-building with coordinated, strategic action around shared goals to drive long-term systems change. Unlike traditional top-down organizations, we’re structured around collaboration, trust, shared purpose, and distributed leadership. This supports our focus on transforming not just programs but also the conditions shaping entrepreneur success —shifting policies, power dynamics, funding flows, mindsets, and mental models.

We recognize that while core ecosystem building principles apply broadly, each community is unique, so we champion flexible approaches that reflect the vast diversity of ecosystem building practitioners, entrepreneurs, and the communities in which they work.

By strengthening the field, aligning national efforts, and empowering community leaders, we aim to transform how entrepreneurship is supported and build a more inclusive, resilient economy across the United States.

We pursue our mission through three core, interrelated programs that strengthen the field and support the practitioners within it:

1. ESHIP Commons is a digital and in-person, cross-sector community platform that fosters connectivity, collaboration, peer learning, and the discovery of tools and opportunities for ecosystem building practitioners and national ecosystem building resource providers (NRPs). It is also the digital home of the Alliance’s community and collective work.

2. ESHIP Accelerator is a collaborative field-building lab where we co-create and advance dozens of field-building projects aligned with our shared goals (see below). Just as entrepreneurial accelerators strengthen startup companies, this program strengthens the field by accelerating projects that improve the infrastructure and practice of ecosystem building nationwide.
   

3. ESHIP Fund is a pooled philanthropic fund for field-building projects aligned with our shared goals, strengthening ecosystem development in more communities towards a more inclusive and vibrant U.S. society.

Our Values

• Opportunity and Access for All
  We work to remove barriers so anyone can become an entrepreneur, regardless of who they are or where they are from. We seek out voices that are missing.
  
  

• Community and Data-Informed Systems Change Approach
  We take a human-centered, systems-change approach rooted in an Impact Networks framework, guided by community input, evidence, data, and proven theory, to best serve ecosystem building practitioners, resource providers, and entrepreneurs.
  
  

• Trust and Interdependence
  We foster collaboration and shared responsibility, building strong networks rooted in respect, trust, and mutualism.
  

• Resource Stewardship
  We use resources wisely and strategically to support thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems in every community.

• Do things that no single organization can accomplish alone. 

• Focus on mission before organization. 

• Promote others, not yourself. 

• Build constellations, not stars.

• Manage through trust, not control.

• Build and test with the community and in public.

The ESHIP Goals are our shared roadmap for advancing the field of entrepreneurial ecosystem building. These goals guide our collective work to strengthen the profession and, in turn, remove barriers so more entrepreneurs, ecosystem building practitioners, and communities can thrive. 

Created through a multi-year, year-round effort hosted by the Kauffman Foundation—anchored by the ESHIP Summits from 2016 to 2020—more than 2,500 practitioners and the people who support them co-created and ratified the ESHIP Goals Framework. Learn more at www.kauffman.org/eshipgoals

1. Goal 1: Inclusive Field

   Ensure ecosystem builders with diverse perspectives lead our field. 

2. Goal 2: Collaborative Culture

   Cultivate a culture of trust ​and collaboration within our field. 

3. Goal 3: Shared Vision

   Establish shared outcomes and a common lexicon for our work. ​

4. Goal 4: Connected Networks

   Foster coordination and collaboration efforts to connect ecosystem builders across networks.

5. Goal 5: Practical Metrics and Methods

   Identify and develop better metrics and methods for ecosystem building.

6. Goal 6: Universal Support

   Expand external stakeholder understanding of and support for ecosystem building.

7. Goal 7: Sustainable Work

   Develop professional recognition and resources for ecosystem builders.