NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

More proof impact investing is entering the mainstream: the announcement of a $13 million university center devoted to it.

That certainly seems to be a lesson one might glean from the recent launch of the James Lee Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing at the University of Utah‘s David Eccles School of Business. The product of a gift from technology entrepreneur James Lee Sorenson, it’s aimed at allowing students both to garner real-world experience in and study impact investing; the emphasis for now is on early stage deals.

“We’re looking at how we can grow the impact investing sector,” says interim director Lewis Hower.

According to Taylor Randall, dean of the Eccles School of Business, the Center was started partly in response to student demand. “For the past four or five years, interest in studying something that makes a profit and also does something for society has gone through the roof,” he says.