Attending conferences and celebrating entrepreneur-focused events are some of the best ways to stay up to date with entrepreneurship-led economic development. And certainly, these opportunities let you learn how other communities “do entrepreneurship,” but they also allow you to network with the practitioners and thought leaders who are helping empower entrepreneurs and shape entrepreneurial ecosystems.

But we know it’s hard to keep track of all of the conferences and business-specific holidays and hashtags. So at the end of every year (and again at the end of each quarter), we here at SourceLink sit down and map out our calendars. Which conferences should we attend? Which Twitter chats and hashtags should we follow? And how can we best and better raise the visibility for our affiliates, entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders and entrepreneurship?

Here’s our short list we came up with for 2021.

Below, you’ll see just a few of the business— and entrepreneurial–related events we celebrate or create. These events help us shine the national spotlight on local entrepreneurs and on–the–ground resources that make local economies and their entrepreneurial ecosystems vibrant and vital.

By no means do we create a full–blown campaign out of everything on this list, but we do use it as a foundation (a post, a tweet) to help our communities and entrepreneurs stay abreast of the national conversations happening around entrepreneurship. (This list does not serve as an endorsement for non–SourceLink events.) 

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January

National Mentoring Month

Financial Wellness Month

National Thank Your Customers Week

Women’s Self–Empowerment Week

U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference @USASBE #USASBE2021

Make Your Dream Come True Day, January 13

World Economic Forum Davos Agenda 2021 #DavosAgenda

U.S. Conference of Mayors- Winter Meeting, January 21st - 23rd

AACC Workforce Development Institute Adjusting Through Adversity  #comm_college (American Association of Community Colleges)

February

Black History Month (State of Black America Report from the National Urban League)

Time Management Month

Youth Leadership Month

Library Lovers’ Month

International Day of Women and Girls in Science #womeninSTEM

National Inventors Day #nationalinventorsday

California Association of Local Economic Development -CALED’s 2021 Webinar Wednesday, Legislative Outlook, Wednesday, February 3, 1:00pm - 2:00pm PST. 

Entrepreneurs of Color: Building American Opportunity, Thursday February 11, 11:30am - 3:30pm ET

NatlEshipWeek, Feb 13th to 20th, #NatlEshipWeek #NationalEntrepreneurshipWeek

Black Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion Summit 2021, (virtual) February 25

Startup Grind Global Conference, Feb 22nd to 25th, #startupgrind

Sustainability, Ethics & Entrepreneurship Conference, Feb 27th to March 1st #SEEConf2021

March

National Women’s History Month,

National Credit Education Month

WBENC 2021: Focus on the Future, (virtual) all month, Women's Business Enterprise National Council

International Women’s Day March 8, #IWD2021 #EachforEqual

Daylight Saving Time 2021, March 14

National League of Cities Congressional City Conference, 2021 (virtual), March 7th - 10th #vwopen

2021 Women's Entrepreneurship Symposium: Pathways to invention, entrepreneurship, and STEM careers for K-12 and beyond, (virtual) March 10, Noon - 1:30pm ET

SBDC Day, March 17th, #SBDCday

April

May

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Jewish American Heritage Month

National Small Business Week, 2021 May 2nd - May 8th (tentative) #SmallBusinessWeek,#NSBW #NationalSmallBusinessWeek

American Association of Community Colleges, AACC Digital, Thursdays in May

IEDC Workforce Development Strategies, (virtual) May 4th - 5th, 11:00am to 5:30pm ET.

IEDC Professional Development - Business Retention and Expansion, (virtual) May 6th - 7th

IEDC Economic Development Week, May 9th - 15th #EconDevWeek

June

July

National Recreation and Parks Month

National Culinary Arts Month

Independence Day, July 4th

Essence Festival of Culture, Weekend 2, (virtual) July 2nd - July 4th, #ESSENCEFEST

Rural RISE Monthly Action Session Web Conference, July 15th, 2:00pm ET. 

IEDC Accelerating Growth through Entrepreneurship-Led Economic Development, (virtual) July 29th - July 30th, 11:00am - 5:30pm ET.

August

National Inventors Month

Work Like a Dog Day, August 5th - #worklikeadogday

Southern Economic Development Council - 75th Anniversary Celebration & Annual Conference - Tampa, August 15th - 17th

IEDC Entrepreneurial and Small Business Development Strategies, (virtual) August 26th - 27th, 11:00am - 5:30pm ET. 

World Entrepreneurs' Day 2021 #TwentyFirstAugust

September

Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15th - October 15th

Labor Day, September 6th

Rural RISE Summit 2021, September 20th - 21st. Emporia, KS

More 2021 Events

Our team is working on collecting additional information for future events for April and beyond. Please email us if you know about upcoming events that should be included and check back often as we update this page.

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