Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture.

2025 NVC Competition Live Stream

2025 NVC Awards Live Stream

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

Find your path

Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

A student standing with a faculty member holding big winning checks from the New Venture Challenge 2024.

Start up

Build up your venture idea.

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A student smiling and standing in front of his venture display at the 2024 New Venture Challenge.

Family business

Explore the Alternative Entrepreneurial Pathways category at NVC.

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A close-up of the Prusa i3 MK3 printer in the entrepreneurship makerspace, the IDEA Den in Grawn Hall 166.

Product and prototype design

Create and patent your ideas.

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Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

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CMU Alumna earns prestigious SUCCESS Magazine 2024 Women of Influence award

by Jason Fielder

CMU Alumna Katherine Warnock ’04 is one of fifty female leaders to be given SUCCESS Magazine’s 2024 Women of Influence award. The award spotlights extraordinary women whose contributions consistently inspire and transform lives while transcending boundaries across diverse industries and communities.

Warnock is vice president of original content for the television series The Chosen, which started as a crowd-funded project and has since amassed over 600 million episode views. The program also has more than 10 million social media followers.

Warnock recently told The Christian Broadcasting Network that her time at Central Michigan University started her on the path to finding her faith.

As a 20-year-old undergraduate, she was on the nationally-ranked CMU track and field team. One of her teammates invited her to a Spirit-filled church. Warnock, raised Catholic, said to CBN, “It was beautiful. There were people worshipping demonstratively, speaking funny languages. At the time, I didn’t know what I was experiencing but I later learned it was the Holy Spirit, and I never looked back.”

After graduation, she briefly spent time as a high school teacher when she says God called her to the mission field. During one mission trip to Africa, she says God indicated to her that she was needed in Hollywood.

For the next 14 years, Warnock found herself in a variety of different professional roles in content, creative, marketing, and branding-based leadership spanning film, television, digital, editorial, fashion, and social enterprise.

Warnock has worked with elite brands, from Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Sony to Ford, Aerie, and Gillette, with a goal of positively affecting culture through purposeful, anchored, community-driven media.