Babson College gets $10.8 million for social entrepreneurship institute

By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff

Babson College has received a $10.8 million donation to establish an institute for social entrepreneurship.

The donation, the second largest from an individual in the history of the Wellesley business school, will seek to develop business leaders and create new commercial enterprises to tackle societal problems. The institute will be named for the donor, Alan E. Lewis, chairman of Grand Circle Corporation, a travel company. The Lewis Institute For Social Entrepreneurship will support teaching, research, and outreach in the field, college officials said.

It will provide venture capital for social enterprises in education, healthcare, energy, and the environment, and create a research consortium that will examine social entrepreneurship around the world.

"The corporations and entrepreneurs that have already established successful philanthropic programs owe it to their younger counterparts to share the lessons we have learned," Lewis said in a statement. "Just as we help the deserving nonprofit, so we must offer leadership and support to our future business owners seeking to incorporate philanthropic programs into their fledging businesses."

Babson President Leonard Schlesinger said that "the scale, enormity, and globalization of the problems before us today require entrepreneurial solutions."

Schlesinger added: "Through the Lewis Institute we can provide the right tools and talent to test out new thinking, new approaches, and new products and services -- helping to tackle the toughest problems the world now faces."

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