ESHIP Alliance Is Raising Our Next Round of Growth Funding
The Alliance is working to close a $500K capacity-building funding round in 2026 to keep building the national infrastructure behind ecosystem building
Representatives of the ESHIP Alliance Leadership Council and Core Team at the Entrepreneurship Funders Network (EFN) Convening in Chicago in October. (Right to Left): Andy Stoll (ESHIP Alliance Executive Director); Fay Horwitt (Founder, Way Builders and ESHIP Field-Builder-In-Residence); Gustavo Ustariz (Director of Entrepreneurship at Main Street America, ), Julie Heath (Executive Director, Indiana University Innovates), Ifeoma Aduba (Executive Director, EFN) and Anika Horn (Social Venturers, Founder).
Executive Director Update
By Andy Stoll, Founding Executive Director
As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share a brief update on where the ESHIP Alliance stands—and where we’re headed next.
After 18 months of testing, learning by doing, and organizational build-out, the ESHIP Alliance has emerged as a field catalyst for entrepreneurial ecosystem building in the United States: a growing network of networks that connects together ecosystem building practitioners and 100+ aligned national organizations that support them.
In this role, ESHIP is helping to build the shared infrastructure the ecosystem building field needs—mapping the landscape, serving as connective tissue between organizations, increasing visibility of resources, and making it easier to learn and collaborate across a fast-growing national professional field.
As we succeed, it becomes easier to be an ecosystem builder in America, leading to more entrepreneurs, in more places, having the support they need to start and grow their businesses.
With our initial design and launch phase complete, we’re now raising a $500,000 capacity-building funding round to extend our organizational runway, build our capacity and staff, and support our transition to a more diversified, coalition-backed funding and revenue model.
We’ve raised $145,000 so far, with initial commitments from the Kauffman Foundation, SourceLink, Startup Champions Network (SCN), Right to Start, and a personal contribution from me to kick off our effort.
As we head into 2026, you’ll hear more about this next capacity-building phase, the growing coalition behind this work, and announcements of several new field building projects. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, read on to learn about where we’re at in our current fundraising round—and how you can help.
Why ESHIP. Why Now.
Over the past decade, our work has helped move entrepreneurship to the center of economic development. More communities than ever are investing in ecosystem building as an inclusive, place-based strategy to support entrepreneurs and strengthen local economies. At the same time, rapid advances in technology are further democratizing entrepreneurship and innovation—lowering barriers to entry while increasing the need for stronger, connected entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems everywhere.
Yet the field that supports this work is still emerging.
Ecosystem building practitioners, funders, and the 100+ National Resource Providers (NRPs)—which are organizations that provide training, programs, and resources for practitioners—are doing critical work. But too often, that work happens in fragmented ways, and we lack shared standards, common language, better metrics, proven practices, and stronger infrastructure to support the field. As momentum grows, so do the costs of operating without greater coherence and coordination. ESHIP was built to address that gap.
As a network of networks, ESHIP is designed as a field catalyst: a shared, trusted coordinating body that strengthens—rather than replaces—existing organizations. Our role is to improve coherence across the ecosystem building landscape by connecting practitioners, aligning national organizations, supporting shared learning, and accelerating the development of tools, training, programs, and funding that make it easier to build strong ecosystems in every community in the United States.
We’re at a tipping point. Thanks to the collective work of many in our field over the past decade, ecosystem building has emerged as the next wave of economic development—but ecosystem building won’t reach its full potential unless we build the professional field as intentionally as we build the ecosystems themselves.
Click the image to open the full ESHIP Alliance pitch deck.
A Critical Bridge Moment In Our Funding
After a decade of primary support from a single funder, we’re intentionally transitioning to an independent, multi-funder, coalition-backed model. We’re deeply grateful to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for catalyzing this work and for their long-standing support since 2016, including their final financial contribution to help launch this fundraising round. We’re also clear-eyed about what this moment requires: no single organization or funder can support an entire field. This work must be funded together.
From the beginning, ESHIP’s first principle has been simple: do what no one organization can do alone. Over nine years, we’ve built the trust, relationships, and shared understanding needed to make real collaboration possible. The hardest work of collaborative field building happens long before visible scale is possible—and we’ve done the work.
Supporting the ESHIP Alliance is not about funding a single entrepreneurship program; it’s about strengthening the field itself. By bringing many stakeholders and funders together—each contributing what they are able—we can reduce fragmentation, align national efforts, and build shared infrastructure that improves the effectiveness of thousands of organizations supporting entrepreneurs nationwide.
This kind of collective investment creates lasting impact that none of us could achieve on our own.
Serving Ecosystem Builders—and the People Who Support Them
For ecosystem building practitioners, National Resource Providers, and funders, ESHIP is designed to be a force multiplier.
Our work focuses on:
Aligning national organizations around the real needs of ecosystem building practitioners.
Building sustainable and shared learning and collaboration infrastructure.
Increasing visibility, connection, and learning pathways for practitioners.
Translating research and practitioner insight into field-level strategy and knowledge.
Developing funding pools and models to ensure this work is sustainably resourced.
In 2026, this work will deepen through our Field Building Partnership Program—a contribution-based membership that brings together leading organizations that provide support, training, tools, and funding for ecosystem building practitioners across the U.S. Together, we align strategies, strengthen connections, and work together to advance ecosystem building as a recognized professional field.
We’re deeply grateful to our inaugural Field Building Partners who worked together to stand up the ESHIP Alliance. If you know them, please thank them:
We’re also excited to share our first committed 2026 Field Building Partners in SourceLink, Startup Champions Network (SCN), and Right to Start. We are seeking even more aligned organizations to join our growing coalition through the Field Building Partnership Program, learn more below.
How Can You Help?
As we head into 2026, we’re inviting funders, field building partners and supporters to engage in one of three ways to help us close this fundraising round:
1. Philanthropic Support
We’re seeking foundations and philanthropic funders interested in strengthening entrepreneurship and ecosystem building nationwide. Know someone we should be talking to? Send them our way at hello@eship.org.
Download the Philanthropic Funder Info Sheet (PDF)
2. Become a Field Building Partner
Join peer national organizations to align strategies, strengthen connections, and co-invest in advancing ecosystem building through the 2026 Field Building Partnership Program.
Download the Field Building Partnership Program Info (PDF)
3. Individual and Organizational Giving
As we work to close the remaining $355,000 in this fundraising round, I’m making a $20,000 personal contribution to reflect my belief in this work and in the connective tissue we’re building for our still-emerging professional field.
I’ve spent nine years helping shape this effort. Now, as ESHIP comes fully into being an independent, jointly held collaborative network of networks, I’m more confident than ever in what’s possible when we work together across sectors, organizations, and geographies to advance the field as a whole.
The potential reach of this model is extraordinary. As this network continues to grow, we have a real opportunity to support entrepreneurs in every community in the country.
I am making my donation because I deeply believe in what the Bridgespan Group’s research has shown:
“Field Catalysts are among the highest-leverage investment philanthropy can make when it comes to equitable system change.” (source)
I’m humbled by the leverage point we’ve reached, clear-eyed about the work ahead, and deeply grateful to the hundreds of partner organizations and literally thousands of people who have helped bring us to this moment.
Individuals or organizations that want to join me in financially supporting the development of the ecosystem building profession, can make a tax-deductible donation at the link below.
Make a tax-deductible donation
Looking Ahead
I’ll share one final update before year’s end on this blog, reflecting on what we did—and what we learned—in 2025, stay tuned.
And as we head into the new year, you’ll hear more from me and the ESHIP Alliance about new field-building projects, expanded partnerships, and the next phase of work to strengthen the ecosystem building field.
If entrepreneurship is to deliver on its promise of inclusive, place-based economic opportunity, the field that supports it must be strong, coordinated, and well-resourced.
I’m grateful to you for joining us —and we look forward to building what comes next, together.
Join Us and Follow Along
Whether you’ve been with us for nine years, recently joined under the ESHIP Alliance banner, or are just discovering our work, below are three ways to stay connected . Join us on The ESHIP Commons, our online digital community platform for ecosystem builders and the people who support them, subscribe to our Field Newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn.
Andy Stoll is a serial social entrepreneur and currently serves as the Founding Executive Director of the ESHIP Alliance. He can be reached at hello@eship.org.