Thunderbird for Good

Innovation for Global Good

Thunderbird for Good started with an idea in 2004 to provide learning opportunities for Afghan businesswomen hungry for knowledge. Today, our outreach has spread to include non-traditional students from emerging markets all over the world. As our menu of on-site and on-location programs has grown, so has our list of funding partners, mentors and faculty. We are bound together by a common belief that business education improves lives and provides a path to prosperity and peace. Thunderbird School of Global Management was founded in 1946 on this vision. “Borders frequented by trade seldom need soldiers,” said William Schurz, one of the school’s early leaders. Thunderbird for Good supports this core value by bringing the school’s expertise to aspiring businessmen and women who otherwise would not have classroom access.

"We’ve got social entrepreneurs like … Andeisha Farid, an extraordinary woman from Afghanistan, who’s taken great risks to educate the next generation, one girl at a time."

–U.S. President Barack Obama
Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, April 26, 2010, in Washington, D.C., honoring Andeisha Farid, a 2009 participant in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Afghanistan program. Farid also has worked as a 10,000 Women mentor and mentor trainer.

Starting and growing a company takes courage anywhere. But the challenges are multiplied for men and women at the base of the pyramid in emerging markets such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Peru and Indonesia. Aspiring entrepreneurs in these countries have passion and tenacity, but they often lack knowledge to write business plans, manage cash flow and market their enterprises. Business schools teach these skills, but the cost of a graduate business education excludes many trapped in cycles of poverty. Thunderbird for Good works to tear down these barriers through management education programs that support nontraditional students on campus and abroad in the places where they live and work. Graduates of our programs create jobs, share knowledge and improve living conditions in their communities.

More than 30,000 participants have attended Thunderbird for Good programs at our campus in Glendale, Arizona, and in the communities where they live and work all over the world. Rangina Hamida, a 2005 participant in the inaugural Project Artemis Afghanistan, says the knowledge shared in our programs reaches many others outside the classroom as participants work to strengthen their businesses, their families and their communities. “If you add it all together exponentially, we are making a difference,” Hamida says. “It only takes a few strong and courageous women to make a big change.”

We invite you to join us as a donor, mentor, student or partner.