Hanover
The college’s four-year pilot program that reorganized and expanded its program for budding entrepreneurs has raised $36 million to establish a permanent center on campus that will serve as a cross-institutional “hub” for students, faculty and alumni that will focus on entrepreneurship.
The new center, which will be located on the west end of campus near the Tuck School of Business and Thayer School of Engineering, is designed to foster and support students interested in launching business ventures or social enterprises by tapping the resources of all divisions of the college as well as alumni and experts in the entrepreneurship community.
“Our goal is to reach out to the entire student population, undergraduates and graduate students, all faculty who are developing ideas and alumni from all backgrounds,” said Jamie Coughlin, director of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, or DEN, and who has been named director of the new center. “It’s all about bringing people together and providing them with the resources to realize their entrepreneurial goals.”
In making the pilot program permanent, Dartmouth has established the Magnuson Family Center for Entrepreneurship with a $20 million donation from Rick and Allison Magnuson.
Rick Magnuson is a 1979 alumnus of Dartmouth College and founder of GI Partners, a San Francisco private equity firm that has stakes in 49 companies, including First Republic Bank, Sunset Gower Studios, Waypoint Homes and Distressed Debt Platform.
In addition to the anchor Magnuson pledge, Dartmouth also has received 16 gifts of $1 million each from wealthy alumni in technology, venture capital and private equity, bringing the total pledged amount to $36 million toward a $40 million, the college said in a news release. The center’s fundraising is part of Dartmouth’s recently announced $3 billion “Call to Lead” campaign.
Coughlin said that the $40 million for the new Magnuson Family Center will work as an endowment which will generate interest income that will fund the program’s operations. Under the pilot program, DEN had to receive funding each from the college to operate.
The Magnuson Family Center will offer students “co-curricular” programs to develop their business skills as well as provide programs for faculty and alumni; increase the placement of student in business internship programs and sponsor initiatives solve “complex world problems,” Dartmouth said.
“This is like going from start-up to growth phase,” Coughlin said, borrowing a phrase often used to describe the business trajectory of entrepreneurial ventures. He said the new building will be “in the next two to three years.”
The new building housing the Magnuson Family Center will share space with Dartmouth’s computer science and engineering programs. Coughlin said DEN’s staff is expanding to six from its original three, including a recently hired person based on the West Coast to liaison with Silicon Valley.
Coughlin, former chief executive of business incubator abi Innovation Hub in Manchester, was brought aboard to head DEN four years ago under a reorganization of the college’s entrepreneurship program. He has overseen the DEN Innovation Center, a space on Currier Place in Hanover where students develop venture ideas and connect with alumni mentors in the business community.
The Innovation Center has awarded more than $400,000 toward over 100 ventures since its inception in addition to funding and arranging internships for Dartmouth students.
DEN will be folded into Magnuson Family Center, which will operate out of the DEN Innovation Center on Currier Place until the new building is erected on campus.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com or 603-727-3219.
