Our Full Mission
By Ryan P. Allis, July 29, 2003

The Goal

Increasing standards of living, reducing poverty, and encouraging sustainable economic development in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin/South America, is our mission.

Our strategy for accomplishing this goal is to make entrepreneurship and business development possible for every person in every country, fight corrupt government and business, work with governmental and non-governmental organizations to enhance the business and social infrastructure, establish proper legal and property ownership systems, improve entrepreneurship and business education at the grassroots level in every country, and connect entrepreneurs, investors, and governments at every level so as to encourage the exchange of contacts, ideas, methods, and investment capital.

We believe that competitive market economies, free from collusion and corruption, are essential to creating an incentive to produce and thus are essential to a high standard of living. We believe that the ability to be an entrepreneur should be made available to every human from every country. To this end, we will promote not pure capitalism, but rather efficient competitive market economies that take into account those at both ends of the socioeconomic ladder.

We believe in promoting the principles of liberalism. We believe in a republic and democratic system of government, religious freedom, and the promotion of individual initiative. We believe there is a distinct and important role, though limited, for government, especially in the early stages of a country’s development.

We want to give the over two billion persons who live on under $1 per day the chance and ability to make something of themselves, create a life free of poverty, and provide value to society. Presently, breaking out of poverty, becoming an entrepreneur, or significantly improving status is not possible for the majority of persons in the world. In the way is corruption in government and deficiencies in business and social infrastructure, proper legal frameworks, entrepreneurship education for those at the lower socioeconomic ends of society, and communication among aspiring entrepreneurs.

Our Strategy

To reach this goal we will follow the tactics given in our strategy stated above. We will

1. Encourage and teach entrepreneurship from the mud hut to the business school;
2. Fight political and business corruption;
3. Help enhance the business and social infrastructure;
4. Help establish proper legal and property ownership systems; and
5. Connect entrepreneurs at all levels with investors and governments.

First, we will encourage entrepreneurship at every level. While not everyone will want be an entrepreneur, the skills of always improving processes, focusing on efficiency, and properly managing people will be important to all members of society. We believe that it is a right of mankind to be able to start a business, create value, and if a business succeeds profit from working hard intelligently. We must democratize entrepreneurship and streamline governmental systems so as to create a society in which it is not just those with money and connections who are able to start a business. We believe that entrepreneurship creates competition in the marketplace, creates an efficient use of resources and distribution of goods and services for society’s needs, and over time ensures that the price of goods and services goes down while the quality goes up—thus increasing standards of living.

We must teach entrepreneurship in the villages, towns, and cities, in the schools and homes. Often this will not be the type of entrepreneurship you’ll learn in an American business school. There will often be no venture capital, no down rounds, no initial public offerings, no option pools, and no seasoned executives to attract. Rather, we’ll just as often be teaching how to register a business in a country, the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement, or the difference between revenue and profit. We hope to be at all levels, from working with governments and NGO’s such as the World Trade Organization and World Bank to arranging methods of international distribution and trade for local artisans and farmers to helping to write the curriculum at a new graduate business school in Nairobi to assisting the creation of the first formal stock market in a country.

Crucial to our ability to reach our objectives will be to the extent that we are able to reduce political and business corruption in our world. While the majority of this has been routed out in developed countries over the past century, much still remains in developing nations. We must promote democratic elections, checks and balances in government, and the development of organizations that play roles similar to the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. We must fight despotism, nepotism, favoritism, fraud, tax evasion, and financial manipulation.

The third part of our strategy is to assist in the development of the business and social infrastructure. There are very few entrepreneurial support organizations, effective Chambers of Commerce, or universities completing top-tier research in developing countries. We must work to encourage the growth and assist in creating the structure for such organizations. We must help to launch research labs, entrepreneurship clubs, and tech transfer offices at universities, encourage an active Chamber of Commerce in every sizable town, and bring entrepreneurial networking organizations such as YEO, SCORE, CEO, WEO, and TiE to the developing world. Finally, we will work to establish efficient tax systems and with part of this revenue, along with revenue from international aid create a social safety net that gives a hand out for a limited time and forever a hand up.

As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto notes in The Other Path and The Mystery of Capital, a significant problem in the developing world is the lack of formal property laws. Without official title to their land, even if it is only a ten foot by ten foot slum, the poor have little incentive to improve their house and surroundings and just as important are unable to leverage this asset to obtain a microloan from the bank that they could use to start a small business or turn their wood panel or hardened mud walls into concrete or brick. We must establish formal property laws throughout developing nations and we must do this immediately. Further, we must establish legal systems that do not unduly benefit any party or caste, are fair to all members of a country, and take atrocities such as corruption and torture very seriously.

Finally, we will build a system to connect entrepreneurs at every level, investors, and governments so as to encourage the spread of knowledge, methods, ideas, and proper allocation of investment and grant capital. This will be done initially through the Entrepreneurs’ Network at our web site www.entrecoalition.org. Within the site there will be web-based software that will provide a directory of entrepreneurs within each country, a listserv, a community directory, and the ability for entrepreneurs to create their own subnetworks such as ‘The Hong Kong Entrepreneurs’ Network’ or the ‘New York City Entrepreneurs’ Network’ or the ‘Young Entrepreneurs’ Network.’ The network will encourage the exchange of ideas among the business leaders of today and tomorrow throughout the world. Imagine the value to an aspiring Kenyan entrepreneur to have access to a network of African entrepreneurs who have overcome the challenges of being an entrepreneur in Africa. This is the value we hope to provide.

It will take many decades to build the Entrepreneurs’ Coalition into the foundation we hope it will become. There are many people who have dedicated their lives to increasing standards of living, solving the global problem of poverty, and encouraging economic development in the third world. We are with you and we hope you will be with us.

To learn more visit www.entrecoalition.org.

Warm regards,

Ryan P. M. Allis
Executive Director
The Entrepreneurs’ Coalition
101 N. Columbia St. Suite 400
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

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