During Global Entrepreneurship Week, we highlighted five building blocks that make ecosystems thrive. From state economic developers to university innovation leaders, from arts councils to regional chambers, the same foundations keep appearing.
Strong ecosystems are built deliberately, with infrastructure that supports collaboration, data that drives decisions, measurable impact, and forward-thinking approaches.
Here’s what ecosystem builders across the country are doing to strengthen those foundations.
Building Block #1: Infrastructure + Innovation
Kansas is preparing for six 2026 global sporting events in Kansas City. The state built infrastructure that will last beyond the event.
The Kansas Small Business Office implemented EcoMap’s Ecosystem Relationship Manager (ERM) as a centralized bid board. Businesses can now view and apply to procurement opportunities in one place, post their own solicitations, and connect with partners.
Taylor Eubanks, Director of the Kansas Small Business Office, said, “We’ve been able to use this platform to activate entrepreneurs. And those practices won’t go away when the games are over.”
Kansas also created a maturity model to assess entrepreneurial support organizations across twelve dimensions, using the results to guide capacity-building investments.
“If we’re going to ask these organizations to deliver, we need to be clear about what that looks like,” Eubanks said. “We need to make sure they have the support to do it.”
Building Block #2: Collaboration + Community
Oregon’s Regional Innovation Hubs each had their own systems and ways of working. That local ownership mattered, but it made coordination difficult.
Business Oregon implemented EcoMap’s ERM to create shared infrastructure across the state’s innovation hubs, giving regional teams a common language and toolset without forcing rigid processes.
Jordana Barclay, Innovation Strategist at Business Oregon, said, “We’re not here to tell people how to do their jobs. But we have to find ways for these systems to talk to each other.”
Oregon can now identify gaps faster, track how entrepreneurs engage with resources, and make more informed funding decisions. The platform also strengthens collaboration between the hubs themselves.
“We know there’s amazing work happening,” Barclay said. “But we don’t always tell our story well. Having data on how entrepreneurs engage with resources, what they need, and where they’re getting stuck will help us advocate for continued support.”
“Collaboration can’t be something that’s nice to have,” she said. “It has to be built into the systems we’re using.”
Building Block #3: Data + Intelligence
Universities have untapped innovation potential, but only if people with ideas know where to turn.
When Bill Romani arrived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2023, many resources like tech transfer, IP support, and commercialization weren’t being fully utilized. Faculty and staff didn’t understand how to navigate them.
“If you really want to grow your ecosystem, it’s not enough to just double down on the people who already know what’s going on,” Romani said.
His team at Innovate Carolina applied a human-centered design approach, talking directly to faculty, students, and community members to understand what content mattered and how people wanted to consume it.
The result was Carolina EcoMap, which consolidates startup resources, mentorship, and co-working spaces into one system. The platform already shows strong ROI by connecting innovators to resources faster.
Julie Heath, inaugural executive director of IU Innovates at Indiana University, emphasized the importance of data-driven storytelling. In her previous role with the Indiana Secretary of Commerce, she developed a GDP map to track the economic contribution of young companies at the county level. The map became a powerful advocacy tool for state and local leaders.
“There’s never a better time to have the entrepreneurial mindset of seeing problems as opportunities to solve,” Heath said.
Both universities also engage high school students to strengthen the innovation pipeline.
Building Block #4: Impact + Outcomes
Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council needed to understand the financial health of arts organizations across the region. The old methods were expensive, slow, and burdensome.
Patrick Fisher, CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, took a different approach. The Council implemented the Nonprofit Intelligence Dashboard in partnership with EcoMap.
“The data is often old the moment you get it,” Fisher said about traditional methods. Self-reported information created inconsistencies and required significant time from already-stretched organizations.
The new approach pulls from standardized public resources, reducing errors and cost while providing sector-level insights for advocacy and organization-specific data for strategic planning.
The dashboard helps identify early signs of financial vulnerability, informs board conversations about leadership transitions, and guides decisions about partnerships and mergers.
Fisher emphasized a shift in thinking. Moving from “sector” to “ecosystem” highlights how interconnected the organizations are.
“What you do impacts what I do, and what I do impacts what you do,” he said. A healthy ecosystem requires healthy individual organizations.
The Arts Council plans to use the dashboard for annual trend conversations with nonprofits and their boards, helping them identify priorities and connecting them with consultants and funding.
Building Block #5: Future + Forward-Thinking
Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) serves nearly 12,000 member companies from entrepreneurs upwards to the largest corporations in the region. As the largest regional chamber in the United States, the organization is embracing new ways to connect with members to better serve their needs in a tech-enabled world, including a chatbot, an electronic membership application, and an ecosystem resource directory with over 900 regional resources.
“People today are so busy, so when they do have time to connect with us, we need to make it easy for them to get the answers and support they need, whether that is during or outside of business hours. The chat function allows them to access information quickly, and it helps us better understand what our business community needs,” said @Chad Hamman, VP, Membership and Product Development.
“The resource directory also supports navigation to the right resources at the right time. GCP and our small business arm, COSE, are making these tools directly available to everyone, including businesses that aren’t yet members,” added Hamman. “This helps support the strength of our ecosystem and helps businesses find contacts, programs, and solutions quickly, so they don’t have to spend too much time searching.”
GCP operates at the nexus of public and private sectors, convening conversations and facilitating connections. That role requires infrastructure that can keep pace with how businesses communicate today.
The Five Building Blocks Work Together
Infrastructure enables collaboration. Collaboration produces better data. Data reveals impact. Forward-thinking ensures the foundation adapts as ecosystems evolve.
Kansas built infrastructure that will outlast a single event. Oregon created systems for hubs to coordinate. UNC and Indiana University made innovation resources accessible and measurable. Pittsburgh gained visibility into nonprofit health. Greater Cleveland prepared for how chambers will operate in the future.
Each ecosystem is different, but the foundations remain the same.
Strong ecosystems need infrastructure that works, collaboration that operates systematically, data that drives decisions, measurable impact, and forward-thinking approaches.
Together, we build.
Learn more about how EcoMap supports ecosystem builders: https://ecomap.tech/solutions/
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do you build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem?
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Building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem requires five key elements: infrastructure that supports long-term growth, coordination across organizations, data and intelligence that drives decisions, measurable impact, and forward-thinking approaches that adapt to evolving needs. Successful ecosystems invest in these foundations deliberately rather than treating them as separate initiatives.
- How do you measure the success of an entrepreneurial ecosystem?
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Ecosystem success is measured through multiple indicators depending on your role. Universities track resource utilization and innovation pipeline metrics. Arts councils monitor nonprofit financial health, like revenue diversity and cash flow. State agencies track entrepreneur engagement, identify gaps, and allocate funding. Chambers measure member access to resources and navigation efficiency. The key is moving from anecdotal evidence to systematic data collection.
- What is ecosystem intelligence?
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Ecosystem intelligence refers to the data, insights, and visibility that help leaders understand their ecosystem’s strengths, gaps, and opportunities. This includes tracking how entrepreneurs engage with resources, identifying which organizations are stable or vulnerable, mapping available support services, and using that information to make informed decisions about where to invest and how to coordinate support.
- How long does it take to implement ecosystem coordination tools?
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Implementation timelines vary by scope and existing resources. Some organizations see initial value within weeks, like Greater Cleveland Partnership’s resource directory deployment. Comprehensive statewide systems like Oregon’s hub coordination take longer but can start showing value incrementally. The key is starting with clear goals, involving stakeholders early, and building iteratively rather than waiting for everything to be perfect.
- What tools do chambers of commerce use for ecosystem coordination?
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Modern chambers use digital infrastructure to coordinate resources and serve members more effectively. This includes ecosystem mapping platforms to make regional resources navigable, relationship management systems to track engagement across organizations, chatbots and digital tools to meet evolving communication preferences, and data dashboards to demonstrate impact. The largest regional chambers are investing in these tools to serve both members and the broader business ecosystem.
