Rachel Stanford is a sales development representative at a start-up workforce management platform founded in 2020, the same year she graduated from the University of Delaware. She has very fond memories of UD, particularly of Horn Entrepreneurship.

“It was a tight-knit community,” she recalled of the 15 or so entrepreneurship majors she interacted with in the same classes and Horn’s Venture Development Center. “I felt like I was able to build strong connections… to my school and my program. I really knew all my professors and wanted to learn what it was like to be part of a startup culture.”

Those sorts of formative experiences are a significant reason why her parents, Tom and Ronnie Stanford, are gifting $1.15 million to UD’s Horn Entrepreneurship in support of the Summer Founders program.

Tom Stanford, CEO and founder of Nuvolo, a software company, wants to do even more. 

“I want to spend the next couple of decades helping young, innovative entrepreneurs see their business opportunities come to life,” he said.

The gift is a significant one for the Summer Founders program in Horn, part of the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. The gift was announced on Dec. 5 at the first Blue Hen Innovation Fest, which celebrated multiple aspects of entrepreneurship at UD.

During Summer Founders, selected participants work for 12 weeks to propel their startup models, seek customer validation and meet with experts. Summer Founders participants are usually given a $5,000 stipend and $1,500 for expenses. Summer Founders is open to current UD students and recent alumni.

Dan Freeman, founding director of Horn, said the Stanfords’ gift is “transformative in ensuring one of our most important programs continues and allowing it to expand.”

The Stanford Family Summer Founders Fund directly funds the stipends and expenses for program participants for the first five years, Freeman said, with the endowment then building to allow for that level of funding in perpetuity.

“This is an ambitious gift that will have an immediate and lasting impact,” Freeman said.

Freeman said that Stanfords’ gift comes with three goals: increase the stipend to $6,000; grow participation incrementally to reach 15 or 16 by the fifth year; and have half the participants research projects in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Stanfords’ funding was first used this summer when the program involved nine entrepreneurs on seven teams.

“[Tom Stanford] wants to see us grow the program, grow its impact and make sure we are engaging the most promising students across campus, especially in science and engineering,” Freeman said.

Tom Stanford personally worked with Horn students in multiple ways, participating in several Summer Founders mentoring sessions and sponsoring several Horn students as interns at Nuvolo, which is a modern, SaaS software company focused on integrated workplace management systems to handle facilities maintenance, space planning, corporate real estate, capital projects, field service management and sustainability needs for Fortune 1000 companies. 

“I encourage the Summer Founders kids that they should never leave Delaware and work for a big company,” Tom Stanford said. “All of them, without exception, should find an opportunity to work in a small start-up company and focus on something they’re super-passionate about, and there’s no greater learning experience than that.”

The Stanfords said they were inspired to make the generous donation because of the exceptional educational experiences their daughters Rachel and Emily had studying at UD.

“We were introduced to the Horn program through Rachel,” Ronnie Stanford. “It was relatively new at the time, but it was immediately impressive. Tom is a serial entrepreneur and has been building early-stage technology companies throughout his career, and Rachel has a similar drive. We really thought she thrived in the Horn program.”

“The University of Delaware and specifically the Horn program have become a very special place in my family,” Rachel Stanford said. “It’s been a huge part of all our lives, and I think we feel lucky to have that sense of community connection.”

Rachel Stanford also gave shout-outs to Professor Vince DiFelice, who taught her favorite course, ENTR455/Startup Experience, and Professor Ted Foltyn, who nurtured professional connections with her father.

The Stanfords have developed other connections to UD. Both Rachel (who in 2020 earned a bachelor of science degree in entrepreneurship and technology innovation) and Emily (who in 2018 earned an honors bachelor of science degree in neuroscience) met their significant others on campus.

About Horn Entrepreneurship

Horn Entrepreneurship serves as the creative engine for entrepreneurship education and advancement at the University of Delaware. Currently ranked among the best entrepreneurship programs in the U.S., horn Entrepreneurship was built and is actively supported by successful entrepreneurs, empowering aspiring innovators as they pursue new ideas for a better world.