Advancing Faith, Freedom, and Free Enterprise for Human Flourishing
The Thomas W. Beasley Center for Free Enterprise is a learning center dedicated to exploring the impact of free enterprise in American society. America’s story is the story of a great commercial republic, and we invite you to discover, share, and help live out that story with us.
The Center aspires to become a global thought leader in free enterprise education and scholarship, engaging students and partners seeking to cultivate flourishing communities through the practice of free enterprise.
Our steadfast defense of the free enterprise system rests on these core convictions:
- Voluntary cooperation, through commerce, enables individuals to combine their ideas, skills, and resources to strengthen human unity.
- Freer markets and competition work best within a framework of measured public policy that safeguards economic freedom.
- Rewarding value creation expands opportunity and improves lives by encouraging invention, innovation, and initiative through mutually beneficial exchange.
- Character-driven enterprise practices demonstrate how free enterprise — guided by faith, rooted in virtue, practiced with responsibility, and sustained through financial stewardship — benefits stakeholders while advancing economic vitality.
- Economic freedom fosters human flourishing, empowering individuals to serve others and helping communities prosper.
Through education, scholarship, and engagement, we inspire and equip leaders in this generation and the next to secure limitless opportunity, serve others through enterprise, and build communities marked by shared prosperity and enduring abundance.
Key Offerings
Free Enterprise Forum
The Free Enterprise Forum brings together accomplished entrepreneurs, investors, executives, and scholars to explore how freer markets drive innovation, growth, and opportunity. The Forum offers practical insight into principled leadership, disciplined capital allocation, and thoughtful risk-taking that support resilient organizations and long-term value creation, while advancing economic freedom in service of human flourishing.
Faculty Fellows Program
The Faculty Fellows Program advances free enterprise education by supporting faculty in teaching, research, and curriculum development in business. Through this initiative, faculty are recognized as Beasley Research Fellows or Beasley Teaching Fellows, receiving awards to pursue innovative projects that foster thought leadership and enhance the integration of free enterprise principles into academic programs.
Small Business Advocacy
Celebrates and champions the small business leaders who power our economy through innovation, resilience, and local impact, while amplifying their voices and advancing the principles of free enterprise. Watch the Small Business Appreciation Week Recap.
Free Enterprise Research Guide
The Free Enterprise Research Guide offers a curated gateway to the ethical, legal, and economic foundations of a free and responsible society. Drawing on primary sources, quantitative data, and leading scholarship, the Guide equips readers to explore the institutional infrastructure of liberty and the ideas that shape markets, policy, and human flourishing in the practice of free enterprise.
Vocations in Free Enterprise
The Vocations in Free Enterprise Library is a curated digital collection featuring biographies, memoirs, and company-building narratives of faith-based executives and founders who view their work as a calling to serve others and contribute to the common good. The collection highlights how faith, moral conviction, and enterprise leadership are applied in building firms that create value, foster dignity in work, and promote human flourishing.
Market-Based Business Projects
Students and faculty engage in applied, market-oriented projects. Through structured analysis and collaborative engagement, participants support entrepreneurs and enterprises in strengthening strategy, improving financial decision-making, and pursuing growth in sales, profitability, and employment while supporting pathways to prosperity.
Tennessee Export Initiative
The Tennessee Export Initiative administers a State Trade Expansion Program (STEP) grant to assist small businesses in entering and expanding into international markets. This grant program is also funded in part by the Small Business Administration and through the efforts of the Tennessee District Export Council.
Nashville Oral Business History
The Nashville Oral Business History project preserves the stories of the visionaries who built Nashville’s most influential companies - capturing over 150 interviews that reveal the city’s biggest deals, boldest decisions, and toughest challenges. Through firsthand accounts of innovation, resilience, and entrepreneurial spirit, we celebrate the power of free enterprise and inspire future generations.
Emerging Leaders in Free Enterprise
The Emerging Leaders in Free Enterprise program equips students and faculty to explore the practice and promise of free enterprise while building meaningful professional networks. With donor support, participants engage directly with leaders in business, policy, and academia through conferences, workshops, and seminars. These high-impact experiences cultivate principled, market-oriented thinking and prepare the next generation for real-world impact.
Free Enterprise Thought Leadership
This initiative advances scholarship and dialogue on economic freedom and free enterprise through the launch of The Journal of Economic Freedom and Free Enterprise and the sponsorship of scholarly presentations at leading academic conferences.
Financial Stewardship Initiative
The Financial Stewardship Initiative champions applied learning and professional readiness by equipping students, alumni, and the broader community with practical financial knowledge and tools that remove fear from financial decision-making and empower wise stewardship for long-term success.
Belmont University Establishes Thomas W. Beasley Institute for Free Enterprise
The family of businessman Thomas W. Beasley made possible a $2 million endowment in Belmont University’s Jack C. Massey College of Business. The endowment will establish the Thomas W. Beasley Institute for Free Enterprise within the Massey College, and the Institute will promote the study of the free enterprise system by providing support for a director of the Institute and sponsorship of business-minded student organizations.
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Contact Us
Jack C. Massey College of Business
1900 Belmont Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37212
Email: ginger.cork@belmont.edu
Phone: (615) 460-6175
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