Fall 2026 | A NEW WAY OF CONVENING - TOGETHER
National anchors
The ESHIP Summit Legacy
Launched by the Kauffman Foundation in 2017, the ESHIP Summits brought ecosystem builders together to accelerate an emerging field—building trust, shared language, and a sense of collective identity. That work produced the ESHIP Goals and an evolving Ecosystem Building Playbook: practical resources shaped with the field to help communities strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems.
A history worth building on
A field-building milestone
Approaching the 10-year anniversary of the first ESHIP Summit—and celebrating a decade of building the field together.
The Field We’ve Built
Ecosystem building is now widely recognized as essential to entrepreneurship and economic development. Across the country, the field has more organizations, stronger networks, better tools, a shared language, and far greater visibility than it did a decade ago.
The Decade We Can Shape
This milestone gives us a rare opportunity to reconnect the field, confront the pressures threatening the work’s sustainability, and turn what we have learned into shared priorities and coordinated action through 2030.
What we are solving for
Together, we have moved ecosystem building from an emerging practice into a recognized field—strengthening networks, developing shared language, and building collective capacity along the way.
Yet the organizations and people powering this work face increasing pressure to demonstrate value, sustain engagement, secure resources, and navigate a fragmented funding and partnership landscape.
Too many ecosystem builders are sustaining essential work without reliable funding, durable infrastructure, or consistent investment in the people holding it together.
Useful work, lessons, networks, and opportunities are scattered across organizations and geographies—making them difficult to see, connect, and build upon.
The field creates relationships and ideas, but lacks a recurring mechanism for turning them into coordinated priorities, resourcing strategies, and sustained action.
What is ESHIP Converge?
ESHIP Converge is a field-wide fall campaign and two-day virtual experience designed to surface what is working, confront what threatens the work, and move collective insight toward action.
Day OneListen + Align
Surface what’s working, name what’s at risk, and identify what requires a shared response.
Day TwoDesign + Act
Turn learning into priorities, fundable projects, and the ESHIP 2030 Action Agenda.
Our Collective Approach
Lift up field activity, useful ideas, active initiatives, stories, tools, and opportunities from across the country.
Bring more perspectives into the conversation through partner events, shared dialogue, and collaborative sensemaking.
Focus shared priorities, connect leaders and resources, and create pathways for coordinated action through 2030.
Where the work leads
Insights gathered through partner-led live event activations and dialogue across the ESHIP Commons community platform will inform collaborative, cross-sector and cross-geographic design sessions on Day Two. Participants will use those insights to set shared priorities and co-design fundable projects that galvanize the seven ESHIP Goals into the next decade.
By “fundable projects,” we mean projects designed with clear outcomes, shared ownership, and credible pathways for investment and implementation—not a guarantee of funding.
What Comes Next
For those who want to go deeper and carry the work forward, ESHIP Commons will provide an ongoing home for project teams to continue designing solutions, building partnerships, developing funding strategies, and moving priority projects toward activation.
Visit ESHIP CommonsVirtual by design
Virtual is not a concession. It is part of the field-building design.
No airfare, hotel, or invitation required to enter the national conversation.
More people and communities can contribute across geography, role, and organizational budget.
Local and regional delegations can participate together and carry the learning home.
A growing national network
As people become Converge Explorers, their states will join this growing constellation—an evolving picture of the field gathering around the work.
Partner markers are approximate. Converge Explorer markers are anonymous and aggregated by state; no names, email addresses, or exact locations appear on the map. State outlines via SVG Maps (CC BY-NC 4.0).
One national gathering
Made tangible through communities, states, and regions.
The delegation model
Local and regional delegations bring a cross-sector group into the same national experience—then help turn what they learn into stronger relationships, shared priorities, and action back home.
Participate with people from your community, state, or region.
Bring a locally grounded group into the national conversation.
Make delegation participation possible where resources are limited.
A growing partner network
Partners are extending the conversation through live gatherings, trusted networks, practical expertise, and cross-field promotion.
Become a Converge Explorer
Becoming a Converge Explorer means joining the ESHIP Converge mailing list and raising your hand for the ways you may want to participate. Explorers will receive event updates, be the first notified when registration opens, learn about new partners and activations, and be eligible for occasional special surprises and giveaways.
“The future is built together.”
