What’s coming next from EBLN?
- Andy Stoll
- Mar 14
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 17
A new digital community platform, an ecosystem building census,
and more – four new collaborative projects launching this Spring
In last month’s Executive Director update, I reflected on where we've been and where we are now on this now eight-year journey that has already involved thousands of people and organizations working together toward one shared goal:
Ensuring entrepreneurship in America is available to everyone, no matter who you are or where you come from.
As you might expect, we’ve taken an ecosystem building approach to tackle this audacious challenge. Our work to date has been an ambitious, sometimes messy, community-driven, collaborative systems change effort that aims to increase the adoption of entrepreneurship-led economic and community development by advancing entrepreneurial ecosystem building as a widely recognized profession.
Early in our effort, we identified the need for a national cross-sector platform for coordination and collaboration across our emerging professional field — a joint organization, entity, or body for collective action, shared leadership, and mutual accountability to enable us to do things that no one organization could do alone.
This led us to the co-design and formation of The Ecosystem Building Leadership Network, or EBLN for short (see last month’s update for more of that history).
Much of the past year since EBLN was officially founded has been spent building the organization’s foundation—from nonprofit operations to shared governance and strategy—and piloting programs to test many of our assumptions. With that foundation in place and new learnings in hand, we’re ready to launch new projects and more actively engage our growing community.
If my last update was a look back, then this one is a look ahead — with four exciting projects launching this spring:
1. A New Digital Community on Mighty Networks — launching in April!
2. A New Speaker Series Launching This Spring
3. The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Census
4. Join Us In-Person in Philadelphia — April 6–9th
You can learn more about each project below, and we’ll share more details as they become available. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas—feel free to comment below or email me directly at hello@ebln.us.
In my next update, I’ll share more about EBLN’s governance structure, which is designed to distribute leadership, strategy-setting, and decision-making across our Leadership Council, Core Team, staff, volunteers, and the broader community. Like all ecosystem governance work, it'll take time to build out, but I’m excited to share more on where we’re headed.
I’ll also share details on the upcoming EBLN Leadership Council election — an invitation for even more people to get involved in shaping and strengthening our collective effort.
Until then #KeepBuilding
Andy Stoll
Executive Director
Ecosystem Building Leadership Network (EBLN)
FOUR PROJECTS LAUNCHING THIS SPRING FROM EBLN
1. A New Digital Community on Mighty Networks — Launching in April!
To better connect, collaborate, and share resources, we’re launching a new online community on Mighty Networks — a more dynamic, flexible, interactive space built for ecosystem builders and the people who support them.
Our current Tradewing platform will sunset at the end of March, so be sure to save any individual posts, messages, or comments you want to keep. The important evergreen documents will move with us.
If you’re already on Tradewing, you’ll be among the first to receive invitations to the new platform, with onboarding starting in April in small groups. If you’re not on Tradewing, stay tuned — we’ll share details soon on how you can join the new Mighty Networks platform.
2. New Speaker Series Launching This Spring
Alongside our new Mighty Networks community – which has much better tools to host online events – we’re excited to launch a new virtual speaker series focused on some of the hottest topics in ecosystem building — from sustainable funding models to ecosystem health metrics and access to capital challenges.
In our early experiments (read: minimum viable products) with communities of practice last fall, we learned that while valuable, those spaces required a heavier lift to organize and maintain and many people are eager for simpler, shorter, high-value opportunities to learn and connect — like a speaker series.
This series will highlight new tools and resources for ecosystem builders and feature leaders with hard-earned lessons to share. Produced in partnership with some of the leading national ecosystem builder networks, the series will kick off alongside the Mighty Networks Platform.
Stay tuned for details in upcoming newsletters.
3. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Census — Coming Later This Year
We’re excited to be rolling out an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Census — a national effort to map and better understand who comprises the field of ecosystem builders in the U.S. This census will help us answer: Who is doing this work? Where are they? What do they need? How can we better connect and support them?
With a publicly available and searchable directory and field-wide map, this project will help us find each other, identify shared challenges, shape the field's future, and ensure ecosystem builders everywhere are counted and recognized.
Stay tuned for details on how to participate.
4. Join Us In-Person in Philadelphia — April 6–9th
Two of the biggest national conferences for ecosystem builders — InBIA's International Conference On Business Incubation (ICBI39) and the 2025 Main Street Now Conference — are coming to downtown Philadelphia on April 6–9.
We’re seizing the moment with a special joint pre-conference Ecosystem Building Workshop on April 6, hosted by EBLN, InBIA, Main Street America and five other collaborating national ecosystem building resource providers (we call them NRP's). No conference badge is required — it is open to all! (That's you.)
Alongside that, consider attending the two conferences that week in Philadelphia:
Whether you’re attending one or both of the conferences, connected to one of the collaborating partner organizations, or just in town for the workshop, come connect with ecosystem builders from across the country. We hope to see you in Philly!
Workshop: Everything Moves at the Speed of Trust Facilitating Collaboration in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
🗓 When: Sunday, April 6, 1–4 PM ET
📍 Where: Downtown Philadelphia
💵 Cost: $20 (scholarships available)
Bonus Session: Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Meetup on April 7th
