Investors in Social Innovation Leverage Matching Funds

The power of collective giving got a whole lot greater when John Morgridge, MBA ’57, and his wife, Tashia, made a $5 million gift to the Center for Social Innovation (CSI) at Stanford GSB. It is the gift that will keep on giving by encouraging others to literally double their money. Thanks to the generosity of the Morgridges, the center is able to match, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, gifts to selected expendable and endowed center funds.

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Jane Chen, MBA ’08, displays an innovative incubator developed for use in rural Nepal as part of the course in Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability, co-taught by Professor James Patell.

Nearly a dozen people have leveraged their gifts through the Morgridge-CSI Matching Fund. Their donations are going to such programs as the Stanford Management Internship Fund, which supplements the salary that nonprofit, public, and social purpose for-profit companies pay Stanford GSB students during summer internships. Donors have also directed gifts to CSI’s flagship Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders, which generates powerful and practical insights about leadership and management and a richer understanding of how to integrate the organizational mission with economic strategy.

Others have given to the CSI Innovation Fund to provide important annual support for the growth of new curricular and co-curricular programs for students, new course development, faculty teaching and facilitation, research support, and coordination of alumni involvement.

Connie Matsui and Bill Beckman, both MBA ’77, appreciated the opportunity to increase their own contributions to the center, to which they have been consistent donors.

“We applaud the Morgridges’ investment, which further leverages others’ gifts to advance the center’s important work for positive social change,” say Matsui and Beckman.

So far, the list of alumni and friends who have taken advantage of the match includes Steve and Shelley Brown, BA ’74; Ivette and Chuck Esserman, MBA ’82; Catherine Kennedy, BA ’76 and Dan Grossman, MBA ’76; Kevin Hall, MBA ’88; Christine and Lenny Mendonca, MBA ’87; Louise and Claude Rosenberg, BA ’50, MBA ’52; and the Barrett Foundation.

The Morgridges’ gift and the commitments it has fueled ensure that the center can continue to prepare and inspire future leaders to look for innovative and collaborative solutions to the world’s most pressing issues.

“Finding a reason to give to the center was never difficult, given the groundbreaking and critically important nature of its work,” says Lenny Mendonca. “But it was even easier to make a new investment knowing that it doubled its power thanks to the matching funds.”