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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The race for Special Olympics

by Sanjay Gupta

Ten CMU students participated in a field study to plan, fundraise and organize a trip for Special Olympics athletes to Michigan International Speedway.

Central Michigan University sport management students took learning beyond the classroom this spring by planning, fundraising and organizing a trip to Michigan International Speedway for 36 Special Olympics athletes.

As part of a semester-long project, Nick Williams, a physical education and sport faculty member, assigned students in PES 180, Sports Management Governance and Organizational Theory to create strategic plans for a trip to the Brooklyn, Michigan, speedway.

Williams offered 10 students from the course the chance for a field study: Take the plans and make the trip happen.

The students hosted fundraising events throughout the spring semester, secured sponsorships and coordinated with the two organizations to plan for the visit. In addition to funding the trip, they raised $6,000 for Special Olympics Michigan.

"This event is something most of the athletes would never otherwise have the opportunity to experience. It's truly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend a NASCAR event and go behind the scenes in a unique way," said Aaron Mills, senior director of marketing and communications at Special Olympics Michigan.

This wasn't the first time CMU students brought Special Olympics athletes to the speedway. Williams filled in for a semester of the sport management capstone class in 2017, where he used his CMU alumni connections at both organizations to make the opportunity available.

After that semester, he wanted to keep the project going. The result was the field study, which offered sophomores and juniors the same hands-on learning experience that students in the senior capstone course had received.

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There's a reason CMU's sport management alum are scoring jobs within the sports industry and across the country. All students are required to have an internship and a field study experience — a key factor to finding a job in the sports industry.

"These students are putting their stamp on the world. They're going to walk out of this experience with a great background that sets themselves from other in the industry. It's all about experience and all about connections," Williams said.

Serving the Special Olympics Community

Central Michigan University recent connections to Special Olympics include community volunteers, student internships and class projects. Over the past several months:

Thirty-five students from the Sarah R. Opperman Leadership Institute helped train Michigan high school students to present Unified Sports Day.
Special Olympics Michigan employed several CMU interns to help the State Summer Games run smoothly May 30-June 1.
In March, CMU Police Sgt. Riley Olson represented CMU at the Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates