Sixty-five years ago, on March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps, a volunteer service organization through which young Americans would work abroad for a period of two years with governments, schools, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations in critical areas such as education, youth development, community health, business, information technology, agriculture and the environment. As part of America’s 250th anniversary, and echoing Kennedy’s historic call for volunteer national service, we encourage President Donald Trump and Congress to establish an Entrepreneurship Corps. The purpose of the Entrepreneurship Corps would be to recognize and celebrate the importance of entrepreneurship in America and, more importantly, to promote and support entrepreneurship-driven economic development in distressed and underserved communities across America. The Peace Corps was originally proposed in 1950 by Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, in an article titled, “A Proposal for a Total Peace Offensive.” Reuther argued that the United States should establish a voluntary agency for young Americans to be sent around the world to fulfill humanitarian and development objectives. “I believe that the more young Americans who are trained to be sent abroad with a slide rule, textbook, and medical kit to help people help themselves with the tools of peace, the fewer young Americans will need to be sent with guns and weapons of war.” Since its establishment, 240,000 Americans have served in 144 countries. The program’s spirit of service and activism represents the very best of America. Today, despite the promise of AI and continued prosperity in the technology sector, the broader U.S. economy is threatened by a number of glaring socio-economic challenges, including slow growth with <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-which-states-face-recession-and-which-are-growing-10920463″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>nearly half of the nation’s states in or near recession, underemployment and job anxiety, worsening wealth and opportunity inequality, and 42 million Americans — nearly 1 in 8 — reliant on food stamps. Such problems — and the anger, cynicism and populism they inspire — have undermined public confidence in corporations and government, led to charges that America’s political and economic system is not only unfair but rigged, and threatened the social cohesion and consensus that a thriving democracy requires. Building a more inclusive and accessible economy, one that works for everyone, has emerged as one of America’s most urgent domestic challenges.
Thriving entrepreneurship is an important part of the solution. Entrepreneurship is deeply embedded in America’s DNA. The American system of self-governance is a profoundly entrepreneurial undertaking, grounded in the frontier spirit of freedom, adventure and self-reliance, and values of individualism, opportunity and enterprise. Entrepreneurs, past and present, are celebrated in our economic and popular culture. Most fundamentally, entrepreneurship powers the American economy, driving innovation, economic growth, job creation and opportunity.
The challenge now is to level the playing field to promote a broad range of new enterprise formation, survival and growth in every state, city and town across America. With that urgent objective in mind, the Entrepreneurship Corps would deploy an army of high-quality talent across America with the aim of improving socio-economic conditions and expanding opportunity in distressed areas of the nation through the transformative power of entrepreneurship. The program should be administered by the Small Business Administration or the Commerce Department, which would be tasked with developing program eligibility standards and matching qualifying businesses with the relevant talent they need. Eligible businesses should be promising but struggling small businesses in rural, underserved or economically distressed areas of the country. Entrepreneurship Corps fellows should be accomplished graduates from community colleges and trade schools, colleges and universities with backgrounds in business, accounting, science, technology, engineering and mathematics who would be assigned to one or more new businesses in distressed areas to assist in their development and success. The standard service commitment would be two years, and participants would earn a reasonable salary paid by the corps and have transportation costs covered, like other federal government employees. Like the Peace Corps, the Entrepreneurship Corps would be a prestigious and rewarding national service experience for young Americans responding to a presidential call to action. And by promoting entrepreneurship-driven progress and opportunity here at home — Americans helping Americans — the Entrepreneurship Corps would inspire a sense of patriotism, unifying purpose and shared prosperity at a time when renewal of such ideals is badly needed. Craig Hall is an entrepreneur and chairman of HALL Group in Dallas. John R. Dearie is the founder and president of the Center for American Entrepreneurship.
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