Philanthropists donate $10,000 scholarship for inspiring entrepreneurs at GSU

GRAMBLING An entrepreneurial husband and wife team have donated $10,000 to inspire Grambling State University students to pursue their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs and developing innovative ideas to inspire the next generation.

During the Red River Classic Gala in Shreveport on Nov. 6., Belden and Pamela Daniels of Boston donated $10,000 for scholarships for students who are participating in Grambling’s new Entrepreneurial and Innovation Institute. The Institute will feature workshops designed to help student entrepreneurs take their ideas from conception to commercialization, including idea generation and development, pitch training and commercialization.

“The university thanks Belden and Pamela Daniels for their thoughtfulness and support of President Willie Larkin’s vision to nurture the entrepreneurial and innovative culture throughout the Grambling community,” said Otto Meyers, III, interim vice president of advancement, research and economic development. “This donation will provide scholarships for students who are participating in the entrepreneurial and innovation incubator programs and other related programs.”

The donation was inspired by Daniels’ long history of economic development work in Louisiana. He first worked in Louisiana for New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu in 1970. He was working in South Louisiana in 1984 when Mayor John Hussey asked him to come to Shreveport to help address the economic and social problems created by the collapse of the energy market in the early 1980s.

“When Helen Godfrey-Smith (chair of the Grambling University Foundation Board of Directors) proposed this, I said that what I really wanted to do was to encourage entrepreneurship,” Belden Daniels said.  “Everything that I have been doing in Northwest Louisiana has been trying to narrow that gap, and the best way to address that gap is to create education, jobs, wealth and skills in the African American community. The scholarship is absolutely focused in doing that. Grambling is a very important focus in Northwest Louisiana, in the Ark-La-Tex region. It is a very good place to make a difference.”

Belden Daniels is internationally known as a pioneer in creating the $3-trillion global social impact industry that invests private capital to create jobs and wealth in low-income communities around the world. He has helped to build more than $183 billion of private capital in 108 social impact funds in 46 North American states and provinces and 21 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. Pamela Daniels, his wife of 56 years, is a developmental psychologist, author and former class dean of Wellesley College.

“Our focus in Northwest Louisiana is trying to create more job and wealth opportunities and much more entrepreneurship,” he said. “What we are trying to do with this scholarship is to change the world. We want to create a group of people to help mentor and support the students at Grambling State University.”