The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 to serve the mission of accelerating entrepreneurship at community and technical colleges in the United States. The organization serves two audiences: 1) community college administrators who are manage entrepreneurship education programs and entrepreneurship centers and 2) faculty members who teach entrepreneurship. NACCE's vision is creating economic vitality through entrepreneurship; members believe community colleges are in an ideal position to accomplish this based on their accessibility and local ties to their communities. NACCE helps community colleges nationwide link their traditional role of workforce development with entrepreneurial development. Through annual conference, symposiums, a web site, an e-newsletter, webinars, a quarterly journal, member blogs, podcasts, a listserv and other services, NACCE helps is members share information about entrepreneurship education.
The field of entrepreneurship education first emerged in the 1970s, with the first courses at community colleges starting in the early ‘70s. According to a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2007 survey of the 1,193 community colleges in the U.S., 66% offer a least one course in Entrepreneurship, 14% offer an associate degree in Entrepreneurship, 19% offer a certificate in Entrepreneurship, 55% offer Entrepreneurship as continuing education, 26% offer a program in Entrepreneurship, and 20% host a small business development center. Entrepreneurship education programs at community colleges have two target markets: students enrolled in credit and noncredit classes, and potential or existing small business owners.
In 2001, Springfield Technical Community College and the Entrepreneurial Institute at the Springfield Enterprise Center at STCC in Massachusetts began to research and investigate entrepreneurship education practices at community colleges across the country. At that time, only about 10% of 1,200-plus community colleges had any type of entrepreneurship education as part of their curriculum.
At the same time, both the American Association for Community Colleges and the National Commission on Entrepreneurship recognized that community colleges were ideally positioned to be catalysts for fostering economic vitality through entrepreneurship education at the community college level.
In response to these findings, NACCE was created to establish entrepreneurship education as a core offering to foster economic development through community colleges. An inaugural conference was set in motion with a $100,000 grant from S. Prestley Blake, the co-founder of Friendly Ice Cream Corporation. NACCE went on to receive a $50,000 grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City and a $20,000 grant from the Coleman Foundation in Chicago.
In 2003, NACCE held its Inaugural Conference in Springfield, Massachusetts, with 150 attendees. Annual conferences have been held every year since, with attendance now averaging around 400.
NACCE now has over 1000 individual and institutional members.
In the fall of 2011, NACCE launched the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Forum, which encourages all community college presidents to endorse five commitments that will ensure that community colleges are involved in the national discuss about how to increase entrepreneurship which is being led by the Obama White House through its launch of Startup America. Through the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Forum, community college presidents commit to 1) Develop transparency of community college and community assets; 2) Create internal and external teams dedicated to entrepreneurship; 3) Increase entrepreneurs' engagement in community college; 4) Engage in industry cluster development; and 5) Create buss and broad exposure for their college's commitment to entrepreneurship.
Read more about National Association For Community College Entrepreneurship: Major Milestones, Information Exchange/Networking, Annual Conference, Partnerships
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