4Culture – The cultural services agency for King County, Washington is committed to making our region stronger by supporting citizens and groups who preserve our shared heritage, and create arts and cultural opportunities for residents and visitors.
Accelement – All entrepreneurs we know are looking for answers about an aspect of starting and running their businesses, no matter what category: from tech startup to bio-medical to retail. Accelement brings together experienced professionals with business knowledge in almost every category of business to answer those questions and work with those entrepreneurs at no cost.
AIESEC – A global network of young leaders under the age of 30 who strive to better themselves and the communities around them. We are passionate about world issues, leadership development, cultural understanding and experiential learning. The organization spans 126 countries and territories and every aspect of AIESEC’s operations are managed by students and recent graduates. We have operated in this way since our inception, making us uniquely “by students, for students”, for over 65 years.
BC Technology Industry Association – Guided by a mission to make BC the best place to grow a tech company. For more than 20 years, the BCTIA has helped to grow our province’s tech cluster to over 9,000 companies that employ nearly 90,000 people, and that now outpaces the resource industry in terms of economic contribution to the province.
Behind the Code – The Ambassador program is a group of tech experts volunteering their time and energy to promote women and diversity in the tech industry. In Commercial Software Engineering, all the work they do is pro-bono, building relationships with partners and solving deeply technical challenges; the work they do in the Ambassador program is pro-bono, building relationships with communities and sharing solutions and learnings Open Source with the goal of giving everyone equal access.
Center for American Entrepreneurship – CAE’s mission is to engage and educate policymakers in Washington and across the nation, the media, and the American public regarding the critical importance of entrepreneurs and start-ups to innovation, economic growth, and job creation, and to pursue a comprehensive policy agenda intended to significantly enhance the circumstances for new business formation, survival, and growth.
Center of Excellence for Information & Computing Technology – We are an information resource and solution-provider headquartered at Bellevue College in Washington State. Washington shall become a national model in developing partnerships among business, industry and education for the purpose of enhancing economic and workforce development initiatives to meet the current and future needs of the industries critical to the state’s economic vitality. Washington’s Centers of Excellence shall serve as the statewide liaisons to business, industry, labor, and the state’s educational systems for the purpose of creating a highly skilled and readily available workforce critical to the success of the industries driving the state’s economy and supporting Washington families.
Choose Washington – The Department of Commerce makes it easy to do business in Washington, creating jobs and economic prosperity statewide. We provide businesses and investors with adaptive and customized programs and services that meet you specific needs so you can increase sales, enter new markets, find new partners, make substantial investments in the state, expand strategically, find new funding sources and hire and train more workers. Most of these services are free to businesses and investors.
If you are interested in expanding your markets abroad, growing your business in the state, moving your business or some of its operations to Washington or successfully competing in the marketplace, contact one of our business experts today!
To learn more about the Washington State Department of Commerce’s community and business building initiatives, visit the Commerce website.
City of Seattle Community Technology Advisory Board – The board makes recommendations to the Mayor and the City Council on issues of community-wide interest relating to information and communications technology. Issues are referred by the Mayor and Council members or come from community input. We encourage and promote affordable access to and use of information and communications technology. Additionally, we promote and advise effective electronic civic engagement and e-government services.
Create33 – A membership organization serving high-growth technology entrepreneurs with targeted programming, mentorship, customer connections, and investor introductions. Bolstered by a peer community, these resources are designed to accelerate entrepreneurial growth.
Engine – Engine supports the growth of technology entrepreneurship through economic research, policy analysis, and advocacy on local and national issues.
Entrepreneur’s Organization – The world’s only peer-to-peer network exclusively for entrepreneurs, EO helps transform the lives of those who transform the world.
Female Founders Alliance – A curated, private online group of female startup foundersand CEOs. Our mission is to meaningfully improve the percentage of venture capital invested in, and subsequent success rate of, female-founded startups, starting in our backyard. Our approach is simple: we help each other succeed, and we do it at scale. We do this by Connecting, Amplifying, and Referring every founder that joins our community. We welcome and encourage every female startup founder to join us! It’s free, but all the help you get, you’ll have to pay it forward.
HERE Seattle – We seek to attract ambitious and dynamic leaders that wish to further their professional and personal development. Membership affords you the opportunity to partake in member-only events, get some good perks and play a larger role in advocating for a more diverse tech industry. Your support makes possible the activities of a growing organization promoting the inclusion of underrepresented minorities in technology.
IgniteWA – Led by a consortium among local businesses, enterprises, media, government and local citizens to focuses on developing policies, readiness and access to relevant resources at the local level to foster growth using digital technologies at the WA level. Together, we focus to empower our local brands and businesses to thrive in today’s digital economy with the goal of creating new jobs and infusing 100M money into our local economy.
Life Science Washington – Life Science Washington is an independent, non-profit 501(c)(6) trade association whose mission is to stimulate life science innovation, job creation and ecosystem vibrancy across Washington state through engagement, collaboration, promotion, and advocacy. Serving more than 500 members, Life Science Washington brings together research institutions, investors and innovators to grow the state’s life science economy.
MIT Enterprise Forum Northwest – The global voice of entrepreneurship. For more than thirty years, the Enterprise Forum has been a platform for entrepreneurial networking, inspiration and education.
National Black MBA Association – We are a group of professionals dedicated to advancing our careers, enriching our personal and professional experience, investing in the leaders of tomorrow, and driving impact in our communities. Our Vision? To be the center of impact for a community of diverse professionals in the Seattle area.
National Association for Women Business Owners (NAWBO) – Founded in 1975, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) is the unified voice of over 9 million women-owned businesses in the United States representing the fastest growing segment of the economy.
National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA) – This program establishes the criteria to be used in federal contracting to determine service-disabled veteran status; business ownership and control requirements; guidelines for establishing sole source and set-aside procurement opportunities; and protest and appeal procedures for SDVOSBC procurements.
Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER)– is a statutory public/private non-profit created in 1991 by the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Washington, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Our mission is to increase the economic well-being and quality of life for all citizens of the region, while maintaining and enhancing our natural environment. The goals of PNWER are to:
- Coordinate provincial and state policies throughout the region
- Identify and promote “models of success”
- Serve as a conduit to exchange information.
- Promote greater regional collaboration
- Enhance the competitiveness of the region in both domestic and international markets
- Leverage regional influence in Ottawa and Washington D.C.
- Achieve continued economic growth while maintaining the region’s natural environment
sea.citi – Activates our innovative culture as a force for civic action in Seattle. Promoting shared prosperity for our city, we give back through meaningful engagement opportunities, always striving for a more connected community. Join our initiative today to support a future Seattle that embraces innovation while celebrating the city’s unique character.
Startup253 – Tacoma’s home for the startup community. We bring together entrepreneurial leaders, venture capital, corporate, and local government to advance our goal of helping the South Sound region become the best home for innovation and creative new companies.
Startup425 – Our mission is to provide access to tools that experienced workers, students, and entrepreneurs need to go from idea to working business in a successful, sustainable manner. We lower the barriers to entry for non-traditional and first-time founders. This keeps our ecosystem diverse, encourages spontaneous collaboration, and provides pathways to prosperity for our whole community.
Startup Club – Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) created this organization with a goal to provide stage appropriate resources to startups even if WTIA membership isn’t a fit. Discover how WTIA can support your startup though membership, having listed service providers that work with startups, and listing information about local investor groups.
Startup Communities – Your virtual community for leaders, feeders, and instigators in startup communities around the world. Startup Communities is a global network of individuals dedicated to discussing and developing communities to foster startups. Connect with other members and build community on and offline. Receive the latest info related to entrepreneurial ecosystems across the globe. Gain feedback and collaborate with innovators and experts. Join us if you believe startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems breed innovation.
Seattle Tech Startups – An email list about technology and business catering to over 2,500 of Seattle’s tech enthusiasts, startup founders, developers, designers, investors and more. We used to host regular events, but those are currently on hiatus.
Startup Haven – Striving to improve founder success by connecting startup founders with education, opportunities and (most importantly) each other. We take our commitment to founders seriously and most of our events and activities are exclusively for serious startup founders, execs and investors.
Startup Seattle – (Powered by the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development) You are curious about entrepreneurship or have already made the leap. You want to successfully navigate this ecosystem and help make Seattle the best place to startup. You’re in the right place.
Tech Association of Oregon – Creating a world-class and inclusive innovation economy in Oregon and SW Washington. We do this by helping the region’s technology and tech-enabled industries to grow through programs and initiatives that focus on industry promotion, advocacy, professional networks, and talent development.
Technology Alliance – A statewide, not-for-profit organization of leaders from Washington’s technology-based businesses and research institutions united by our vision of a vibrant innovation economy that benefits all of our state’s citizens. Through programs, events, data analysis, and policy activities, we advance excellence in education, research, and entrepreneurship to support the growth of our high-impact industries; the creation of high-wage jobs; and economic prosperity for our entire state.
TiE -a non-profit, global community welcoming entrepreneurs from all over the world. We believe in the power of ideas to change the face of entrepreneurship and growing business through our five pillars; mentoring, networking, education, incubating and funding. TiE was founded in 1992 by a group of successful entrepreneurs and is currently the world’s largest entrepreneurial organization out there. With programs like TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) and Mentor Match, we are reaching out and fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs.
UPWARD – Uniting Professional Women Accelerating Relationships & Development—is a global collaborative organization of like-minded, senior level, female professionals who come together to discuss the challenges women face and to identify creative solutions to overcome them. It’s a supportive place to build trusted relationships, share ideas, learn new skills, and grow in your career in order to navigate today’s challenging business world.
Vancouver iDevelopers Industry Association – a group of software developers, business people and designers of both software visuals and software user experiences. The groups origins are in developing apps for the Apple iOS platform, but are not limited to it. Our goals:
– To provide a forum for our members to interact and discover each other.
– To showcase the work of our members.
– To expose our members to technologies and news happening beyond the group.
– To meet on a regular but sensible rhythm.
This is a group of bright minds in Vancouver making magic on iPhone, iPad encouraging the intermingling of expert developers and people who are new to Objective-C and the iPhone/iOS SDK.
Veteran Owned Business – Join over 23,500 other veteran owned small businesses (VOSB) already listed and get your company’s profile potentially seen by millions of fellow veterans, government agencies, prime contractors, sub contractors, corporate purchasing departments and every day consumers who strongly and proudly support veterans businesses and are right now looking for your products and services.
WBBA – An independent, non-profit 501(c)(6) trade association serving the life sciences industry in the state of Washington. Our members include organizations engaged in, or supportive of, the research, development and commercialization of life science technologies.
Washington Small Business Development Center – A network of business advisors, trainers, and support staff who operate from Washington State University, Western Washington University, several of the state’s community and technical colleges, and selected economic development agencies. Our core services revolve around assisting our clients with making better informed business decisions to grow and sustain their businesses.
Washington Technology Industry Association – WTIA is an influential co-op of 1,000 tech companies large and small. We are pragmatic partners with education and government leaders building a better world.
Women’s Business Development Council – Offering programs for women at every stage of business ownership, from startups to established businesses. As the host of the annual Entrepreneurial Woman’s Conference and Technology Makeover Competition, there are built-in opportunities for networking and to expose your work to a large audience. Services include capital programs, courses, workshops, and programs for Spanish-speaking businesswomen, as well as the opportunity to work towards a Women’s Business Enterprise Certification.
Women’s Chamber of Commerce – Has helped women launch and grow their businesses, whether through training, access to resources, certification for businesses, retirement planning or lobbying. This also a good resource if your business relies on government contracts. Individual memberships are free.
Women Who Code – Women Who Code (WWCode) is a global 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers. We connect amazing women with other like minded amazing women around the globe who unite under one simple notion – the world of technology is much better with women in it.
