America turns 250 in 2026. Right to Start is calling it America’s 250th startup birthday, and they’re launching America the Entrepreneurial, a national campaign to renew the country’s entrepreneurial promise.
EcoMap is partnering with Right to Start on this effort. While America the Entrepreneurial addresses the full landscape of entrepreneurship support, from policy reform to education access, we’re focusing our work on a specific group that rarely gets attention in these conversations.
The helpers.
State economic development offices coordinating at scale. Chambers of commerce expanding beyond traditional membership services. Arts councils building creative economies. Regional development organizations connecting across geography. These institutions are helpers, not in the sense of assistants on the sidelines, but in the tradition of builders who clear paths. They’re the institutional architects who make entrepreneurship accessible.
The Infrastructure Builders
For 250 years, these institutions have been building the systems that make entrepreneurship more accessible. In 1776, civic leaders organized town squares. In 1876, chambers of commerce formalized business networks. In 1976, economic development offices coordinated regional support.
Today, the work continues through state offices, chambers, arts councils, regional organizations, and nonprofit ecosystem connectors. The complexity they manage is exponentially greater, but the mission remains constant. Make it easier for people to start and grow businesses.
Our campaign puts them at the center of the story.
Why Helpers Need Infrastructure
Victor Hwang, co-founder of Right to Start, spent the past year traveling the country talking to entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders.
“When you see a really good ecosystem at work, there’s no wrong doors,” Hwang said in a recent conversation with EcoMap. “People can start something, they can ask a question here, and they get referred to the people that need to help. That really is about the connectivity of the people, of the resources and the region.”
But that connectivity doesn’t happen by accident. It requires systems. And right now, most helpers are managing that complexity without adequate tools.
Someone hosts an entrepreneurship event or an entrepreneur tries to navigate support. There’s energy, there’s willingness to help, but often there’s no system to make sure that energy translates into entrepreneurs getting what they need.
Hwang pointed to the scale of the problem. “Everything affects the entrepreneurial journey. From taxation to regulation, to capital access, to health care, to child care, to economic development. It’s sort of an endless list.”
When the coordination challenge is that broad, helpers need infrastructure built for their work.
The Campaign
Our year-long “Behind Every Entrepreneur” campaign runs parallel to America the Entrepreneurial. We’re spending 2026 making helper work visible.
The first quarter focuses on recognition. Helpers rarely get celebrated, so we’re putting them at the center of the entrepreneurial story and connecting their work to the 250-year American tradition of clearing paths for builders.
From there, we move into community building. Helpers often work in isolation, so we’re bringing together state offices, chambers, arts councils, regional organizations, and nonprofit connectors to show how their different roles strengthen ecosystems when they work together.
By fall, we shift to demonstrating what coordinated ecosystems actually look like in practice. Then we close the year positioning infrastructure investment as essential for the next generation of entrepreneurship.
Each month features a different type of helper. State economic development offices coordinating at scale. Chambers of commerce expanding beyond traditional membership services. Arts councils building creative economies. Small business offices making support accessible. Regional development organizations connecting across geography.
The work is already happening. We are helping to make it visible.
A 250-Year Tradition
Hwang connected the current moment to the founding vision. “Thomas Jefferson said that America belongs to the living generation. That baton handoff says we’re trying to create a society where people can make the lives that they want and can have a real sense of control over their own destiny.”
The helpers building infrastructure today are part of that tradition. They’re creating the systems that make entrepreneurship a realistic path for more people.
“The founders of the future are those who are building the infrastructure of the future of the country,” Hwang said. “Trying to find ways to enable entrepreneurship for everyone.”
That’s what this campaign celebrates. The people doing that work, often without recognition, always with too few resources, consistently making entrepreneurship more accessible than it was the year before.
When Hwang talks about the goal, “When someone has a dream to build something better, they should have a fair chance to make that dream reality. And the thing is, everyone dreams. So that means everybody deserves that fair shot.”
The helpers are building the systems that make that fair shot possible.
Join Us
We’ll be sharing stories throughout 2026. Ecosystem builders who’ve moved from fragmented approaches to unified infrastructure. Support organizations that can finally track how entrepreneurs engage with resources. Regional leaders who’ve closed gaps that kept people from accessing what they need.
If you’re one of the helpers, this campaign is for you. If you’re working to build better systems for your ecosystem, we want to share your story.
America’s 250th anniversary is a moment to recognize the tradition you’re part of and the future you’re building.
Learn more about Right to Start’s America the Entrepreneurial campaign here.
Follow our “Behind Every Entrepreneur” series throughout 2026 as we spotlight the helpers making entrepreneurship accessible across the country.
