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The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced a $100 million donation to the Yale School of Management on Thursday, the largest in the business school’s history.
The gift will dole out funds over a several year period to establish The Broad Center at Yale SOM and bankroll a tuition-free master’s degree program for emerging education leaders. It will also provide training for top school executives and launch a research project aimed at collecting data on public education leadership. Building on work done by The Broad Center in Los Angeles, the Yale initiative will provide management-based skills training aimed at improving public schools district performance.
“Those outside our community may be surprised to see a business school dedicate a major program to public education, but this is exactly the type of issue our school has always cared about–one where leadership informed by systemic thinking, rigorous analysis, and compassion can make a real difference for communities,” said Yale SOM Dean Kerwin K. Charles in a statement.
A multi-industry billionaire, Broad made his first fortune as cofounder of Kaufman & Broad, a homebuilding company he launched in 1957 with $12,500 borrowed from his in-laws. He went on to purchase Sun Life Insurance and grow it into annuities giant SunAmerica before selling it to AIG in 1998 for $18 billion in stock. Forbes estimates his net worth to be $6.8 billion.
The donation to Yale is consistent with the Broads’ long philanthropic legacy. He and his wife Edythe landed at #18 on Forbes’ list of America’s Top 50 Givers this year, thanks to $168 million in charitable donations in 2018. Their two foundations, which have $3 billion in combined assets, support medical research, public education and the visual and performing arts. The foundations recently celebrated 50 years of grant making, and have pledged or given away more than $4 billion in grants so far. In 2017, Forbes presented Broad with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Philanthropy.
“I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished in the last 20 years and I can think of no better future for The Broad Center than Yale University,” said Eli Broad in a statement.
Broad is a graduate of Michigan State University but has a history of founding institutions at prominent schools. His donations have created the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard, aimed at genomics research, and the Broad Stem Cell Centers at UCLA, UCSF and USC.
