by Osman Parvez
—-

What happens when founders give back to the community? The virtuous cycle continues.

From the Denver Business Journal:

A University of Colorado professor has donated $20 million toward construction of a biotechnology center near the Boulder campus — one of the largest single private gifts ever made to CU. CU, which announced the gift Tuesday, said the donation from professor Marvin Caruthers was the largest sum ever donated by a CU faculty member to the university. Caruthers is a noted biotechnology inventor who has taught in CU’s chemistry and biochemistry department for 34 years. In July he received the National Medal of Science. He helped found the drug-manufacturing company Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) as well as Applied Biosystems (NYSE: ABI), which uses methods pioneered by Caruthers to make synthetic DNA.

Some Boulder entrepreneurs aren’t even waiting for monstrous success. They’re giving equity! Clickcaster recently announced it pledged to donate one percent of its overall equity to the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, an organization focused on creating an endowment that let’s young companies, through the gift of their equity, give back to the communities we live and work in.

p.s. Wouldn’t it be cool if the TechStar companies did that?

image: Hamed Saber

—-