Booth Gets $5 Million For Social Enterprise
Former United Airlines President John Edwardson gives $5 million to Chicago Booth for social enterprise
The former president of United Airlines, John Edwardson, has given the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business a $5 million founding gift to support a new Social Enterprise Initiative, Booth announced today (Jan. 29).
The gift is the latest in support of an increasingly hot area for many business schools. Last year, a Stanford alum and his wife gave $150 million—the largest in the business school’s history—to Stanford to create a new institute whose goal is to combat poverty around the world.
The gift to Booth was made by the retired chairman and chief executive of CDW to support student, faculty and alumni interest in the social sector. Booth is defining the social sector to include for-profit and nonprofit organizations with a mission to improve social outcomes.
Booth said the funds will be used to fund the core activities of the Initiative, which include helping students launch and grow businesses in the social sector, matching alumni interested in board service with nonprofit organizations, and supporting student groups and career interests in the social sector.
The gift will also be used to fund faculty research and data collection, a major activity of the Initiative.
In recognition of the gift, the Chicago Booth business plan competition for social (MORE) ventures has been renamed the John Edwardson Social New Venture Challenge.
Edwardson received an MBA from Booth in 1972. He is chairman of the Council on Chicago Booth and a member of the University’s board of trustees.
Edwardson, in a statement, said the Social Enterprise Initiative is a natural outgrowth of the interests and approaches Chicago Booth students and alumni take to their work.
“I am delighted to support Booth’s Social Enterprise Initiative,” Edwardson said. “Booth students, faculty and alumni are engaging in a variety of ways in the social sector, from starting their own social ventures, to choosing a career in the impact economy, making a meaningful commitment to philanthropic and volunteer activities, and doing academic research.”
Led by faculty co-directors Marianne Bertrand, the Chris P. Dialynas Distinguished (MORE) Service Professor of Economics, and Robert Gertner, deputy dean of the Part-Time MBA programs and the Joel F. Gemunder Professor of Strategy and Finance, the Initiative brings together researchers with social sector interests from across the University’s academic disciplines, including economics, finance, marketing and psychology.
“There has been a big increase in student interest regarding how proven business practices can improve efficiency in the social sector and how businesses can think strategically about how they produce social good,” said Gertner, faculty co-director of the Initiative. “The Initiative will support greater social impact through the education of leaders across the business landscape interested in social sector ideas and dedicated to applying rigorous thought and proven business practices.”
“There is a shortage of rigorous research on the social sector as a whole, including its funding and incentive structure,” added Bertrand, the other faculty co-director, in a statement. “With the resources now made available to us by John’s gift, our faculty can conduct research in these areas, and the conversation can go deeper.”
Current and recent research on the social sector by Booth faculty includes field experiments on financial literacy and financial decision-making by the poor, studies on the impact of health and education reforms on development, and social psychology foundations of altruism and volunteerism. The Social Enterprise Initiative will host a conference on impact investing for academics and practitioners later this year.
Edwardson was chairman and chief executive of CDW from 2001 to 2011. He remained chairman until he retired in 2012. The company is a leading provider of technical products and services for business, government and education. Earlier in his career he was president of United Airlines, chief financial officer of Northwest Airlines, president of Burns International Services and executive vice president of Ameritech, now part of AT&T.
Edwardson received Booth’s Distinguished Corporate Alumni Award in 2006, for his successful track record in business.
“The Social Enterprise Initiative is uniquely Chicago,” said Sunil Kumar, dean of Chicago Booth. “It builds on Chicago Booth’s long-standing culture of rigorous analysis and our discipline-based approach to understanding organizations, markets and policy.
“John Edwardson’s philanthropic leadership will help us integrate academic research on issues that are important to the social sector with educational activities. In turn, we can effectively study and help develop more effective organizations,” Kumar said. “The social sector can benefit from proven market-oriented ideas and best practices from the for-profit sector.”
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