National Entrepreneurship Month 2025

November is National Entrepreneurship Month. What started as a day in 2010 has morphed into a month-long celebration. National Entrepreneurship Month is the best time to honor the innovative spirit of entrepreneurs in your community. Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of good rural economies. They create jobs, foster innovation, and contribute to community growth.

The Importance of Entrepreneurship to Local Communities

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of local economies, creating jobs, fostering innovation, and contributing to community growth. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses account for 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. Small businesses also employ nearly half of the country’s private workforce. But behind every successful entrepreneur is a network of supporters, mentors, and collaborators that help turn dreams into reality.

Supporting entrepreneurs helps to create jobs and induce income generation. The impacts of each additional job created by entrepreneurship have a rollover effect that more than those who are directly tied to the business created. Additionally, many times the jobs created by entrepreneurs are sustainable. Unless directly tied to the tourism industry, they are not typically affected by the ebbs and flows of tourism activity. Also, by supporting entrepreneurship, your community is supporting economic diversification. As noted previously, the importance of economic diversification in the new economy cannot be understated.

How Communities Can Support Innovation and Entrepreneurs

Although entrepreneurs are at the heart and soul of solid, sustainable growth in rural America, they often face obstacles such as limited access to capital, mentorship, and networks. Communities need to regularly look for new ways to support successful entrepreneurial growth.

Supporting innovation and entrepreneurship goes hand in hand when it comes to small towns. Rural communities need to utilize creative thinking and embrace new ways of doing things. We need to work to understand what unintentional barriers entrepreneurs may be facing and devise ways to overcome these challenges to help nurture innovation and your community’s next economic driver.

Provided below is a video of a TedX talk given by Jackie Killings about how small communities can support innovation (and entrepreneurism). Jackie is a co-founder of K & M Technologies, a technology and innovation scouting firm that connects entrepreneurs with established corporations. She’s also the founder and President of Khensani Business Advisors, an organizational management and training firm.

A Time to Celebrate and Invigorate

National Entrepreneurship Month is more than just a time for celebration, it’s a reminder that the success of entrepreneurs is tied to the communities in which they operate. By offering resources, mentorship, funding, and celebrating entrepreneurial success, communities can help foster the kind of environment that leads to innovation, job creation, and sustainable growth.