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Area Development Program
Entrepreneurship Initiative

Small, homegrown businesses play an important role in creating self-sustaining local economies and improving the quality of life in Appalachia. The Entrepreneurship Initiative, one of four regional initiatives undertaken by ARC in recent years, is a multi-year, $31 million effort that seeks to provide communities with tools to assist entrepreneurs in starting and expanding local businesses. Key activities include:

Under the initiative, ARC has funded 368 entrepreneurship projects that have created more than 1,200 new businesses and created or retained more than 5,000 jobs throughout the Appalachian Region. These projects have leveraged over $45 million from other sources to support entrepreneurial activities in the Region.

ARC has formed advisory committees for each of its major activities and has conducted more than a dozen conferences, meetings, and workshops to help homegrown businesses grow and prosper.

One major focus of all these activities is to leverage support from other institutions and to broaden and deepen the culture of entrepreneurship throughout the Appalachian Region.

For more information on ARC's Entrepreneurship Initiative, contact Ray Daffner, ARC entrepreneurship manager.

Entrepreneurship Publications

Creating an Entrepreneurial Appalachian Region: Findings and Lessons from an Evaluation of the ARC’s Entrepreneurship Initiative 1997-2005, Rural Policy Research Institute.
Summary of program evaluation of $43 million of investments in entrepreneurship over 10 years.
(April 2008)
PDF format (830 KB)

A Survey of Business Incubators in Appalachia
(July 2005)
HTML format | PDF format (980 KB)

Entrepreneurship Initiative Approved Projects
HTML format

Entrepreneurship Education: Learning By Doing
PDF format (1.2 MB)

Appalachian Youth Entrepreneurship Education Springboard Award—2002 and 2003 Award Winners
HTML format | PDF format (230 KB)

Monograph Special Report: Building Creative Economies Conference, April 28–30, 2002
Posted with permission from Americans for the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts
PDF format (1.3 MB)

Building New Economies in Rural America: Tools for Entrepreneurship Conference Proceedings (September 2000)
HTML format | PDF format (2.3 MB)

Entrepreneurship Everywhere: A Guide to Resources and Models for Entrepreneurship Education
HTML format

Capitalizing on Rural Communities: Emerging Development Venture Capital Funds in Appalachia
PDF format (5.7 MB)