The Coleman Foundation is committed to the principles of self-determination, self-reliance, self-respect, and individual initiative. The Foundation believes these characteristics are essential to the development of entrepreneurs and their pursuit of self-employment and has worked to establish entrepreneurship as a career option and field of study for individuals of all ages.

The Foundation’s work to advance entrepreneurship has included the establishment of Coleman Chairs in Entrepreneurship at colleges and universities across the nation, and the creation of the Council for Entrepreneurship Awareness and Education (CEAE).

In 2005, the Foundation funded the Entrepreneurship Excellence in Teaching Colleges program recognizing and supporting entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities that have 4,500 students or fewer. These competitively awarded grants went to schools with existing entrepreneurship programs that have strong plans for program expansion, cross-campus outreach and/or community involvement.

For several years between 1995 and 2004, the Foundation sponsored the Entrepreneurship Awareness and Education Grants (EAEG) program. The purpose of this program was to promote awareness of entrepreneurship as a professional choice for students and as a course of academic study within a broad range of educational institutions. The recent focus of the EAEG program has been to promote entrepreneurship education in community, technical and community colleges nationwide.

The Foundation provides support for key partners with whom it is helping to create entrepreneurs and develop entrepreneurship as an academic discipline. More information about these partners is available via the links on this page.