As our nation marks its 250th anniversary, Americans have an opportunity to reflect on the principles that have shaped our country for two and a half centuries. Among them is self-determination: the belief that individuals should have the freedom to shape their own future.
While that ideal is most often associated with representative government and the founding of our nation, it has also helped shape the American economy. Every entrepreneur who starts a business exercises that same spirit by choosing to create opportunity rather than wait for it.
That spirit continues to shape the American economy today. Across the country, millions of entrepreneurs are creating businesses that generate jobs, strengthen local economies, and provide valuable products and services. Their success benefits far more than the business owner alone, creating opportunities for employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities they serve.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, there are 36.2 million small businesses in the United States, representing 99.9% of all businesses nationwide. They employ nearly half of the private workforce and continue to serve as one of the nation’s primary engines of innovation, investment, and economic growth.
Entrepreneurship as a Path to Economic Opportunity
Entrepreneurship offers more than a way to earn a living. It gives individuals the opportunity to shape their own future by building something they own, creating value for others, and contributing to the long-term prosperity of their communities. While every entrepreneur’s journey is unique, each begins with the decision to invest in an idea and accept the uncertainty that comes with turning it into reality.
That opportunity has made business ownership one of America’s strongest pathways to economic mobility. A 30-year national study released in May 2026 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation identifies business ownership as one of the nation’s clearest avenues for building wealth. Unlike employment alone, entrepreneurship offers the opportunity to build equity, create lasting assets, and establish a legacy that can extend beyond a single generation.
The entrepreneurial spirit remains strong. According to the Kauffman Foundation, approximately 6.6 million American adults started a business in 2025, one of the strongest years of new business formation in the nation’s recent history. Those numbers reflect a lasting confidence that, despite the risks, building a business remains one of the most meaningful ways to pursue opportunity and contribute to the American economy.
The Challenges Entrepreneurs Face Today
Building a business has never been easy. That challenge is especially evident in today’s entrepreneurial environment, where inflation, higher borrowing costs, workforce shortages, and changing consumer expectations continue to shape day-to-day decisions.
The National Federation of Independent Business, which has tracked small business sentiment every month since 1986, reported on June 9, 2026, that its Small Business Optimism Index stood at 95.3, below its 52-year historical average of 98.0, while its companion Uncertainty Index climbed to 91, well above its own long-run average of 68. The same report found that small business hiring plans fell to a net 9% of owners planning to add jobs in the months ahead, the lowest share since May 2020, while the share of owners reporting job openings they could not fill fell alongside it to 29%, also a multi-year low. Taken together, that pairing suggests fewer businesses are creating new jobs.
These numbers represent real decisions made every day by entrepreneurs who are balancing risk with opportunity as they work to grow their businesses.
How Access to Capital Turns Ideas into Businesses
Initiative and vision can carry an entrepreneur only so far without the capital to act on them. The same Federal Reserve survey found that 86% of small employer firms use some form of financing on a regular basis, and that 60% had applied for financing in the year leading up to the survey, most often to meet day-to-day operating expenses or to pursue an expansion or new opportunity. Capital is what turns a viable idea into a functioning business.
The same survey found that applicants who sought financing through small banks were more likely to be fully approved (57%) than those who applied elsewhere, underscoring the value of relationship-based lending for entrepreneurs navigating that process for the first time.
AmPac’s Role in Supporting Entrepreneurs
The American Dream is not sustained by individual determination alone. It also depends on institutions that help entrepreneurs transform vision into reality.
That belief is what inspired Hilda Kennedy to found AmPac Business Capital in 2005. After working in economic development and witnessing the barriers many minority and women entrepreneurs faced in accessing financing, she set out to build an organization dedicated to expanding opportunity through responsible lending.
More than twenty years later, AmPac has helped thousands of business owners access the capital needed to purchase commercial property, expand operations, invest in equipment, and create jobs throughout California, Arizona, and Nevada. As both the nations first faith-based SBA Certified Development Company and a U.S. Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution, AmPac combines access to capital with business education, mentorship, and long-term relationships because entrepreneurs often need more than financing alone.
Through programs such as the “It Is Possible” Down Payment Assistance Program and the Entrepreneur Ecosystem, AmPac demonstrates what the American Dream looks like in practice: expanding opportunity so more entrepreneurs have the resources to build businesses, create jobs, strengthen communities, and generate generational wealth.
A Fitting Way to Mark 250 Years
For 250 years, America’s story has been shaped by individuals who chose to build rather than wait, and to strengthen their communities through leadership and service. Entrepreneurs continue that tradition every day.
It is in that spirit that AmPac created the 250th U.S. Anniversary CFB Award as part of this year’s Connecting Faith and Business Conference. The award will honor an individual, organization, or small business that demonstrate a commitment to ethical leadership, model social responsibility for the benefit of the community, and champion the principles that shape our democracy, including patriotism, community service, and civic engagement. It is a special, one-time recognition created for this milestone year, and the community itself will help choose the honoree. Nominations are now open!