In 2001, Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) 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, the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (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. NACCE was off to a good start toward fulfilling its mission.

In 2003, NACCE held its Inaugural Conference in Springfield, Massachusetts, with 150 attendees. The response from conference attendees was resounding. It became clear that through the combined expertise of the attendees, NACCE could achieve its objective of disseminating the best practices of entrepreneurship education and student business incubation at the community college level.

Since that promising start, NACCE has experienced phenomenal growth, and now has over 1000 individual and institutional members. Here are more major milestones:

• 2007 – Held first Elevator Pitch competition at 4^th Annual Conference, providing $73,500 to 15 community colleges with funding provided by the Coleman Foundation and the John E. and Jeanne T. Hughes Foundation.

• 2007 – Introduced three awards at 4^th Annual Conference: Entrepreneur of the Year Award, sponsored by E-Myth Worldwide^®; Entrepreneurship Faculty of the Year Award, sponsored by USA Today; and Student Essay Contest, co-sponsored by The New York Times & NACCE.

• 2007 – Held first annual Summer Symposium for Community College Entrepreneurship Educators (S-CCEE).

• 2007 – Launched 32-page journal, the Community College Entrepreneur.

• 2008 – Achieved nonprofit status.

• 2008 – Second round of Elevator Grant program at 5^th Annual Conference provided $108,100 to 19 colleges with funding provided by the Coleman Foundation and the John E. and Jeanne T. Hughes Foundation.