Nancy Lindahl, Alumna (B.A. '68)
Alumna Nancy Lindahl is a big reason that Gopher football is back on campus this fall. She’s also a big reason some top education professors have come to the University. Lindahl is fully committed to the Gophers—from the gridiron to the classroom.
When President Bob Bruininks asked Lindahl and her husband John to co-chair the fundraising campaign for TCF Bank Stadium, she says they accepted without hesitation.
“We felt that it was the right time, and one of the things we’ve said over and over is, for this University to be one of the top research institutions in the country, you have to have the complete package,” Lindahl explains. “Without the football stadium on campus, we weren’t able to really have that collegiate experience for our students—and alums and friends of the University.”
To date, the campaign has raised nearly $90 million in private funds for the stadium, surpassing the University’s goal of $86 million. The Lindahls are among 30 corporations and individuals who have donated $1 million or more. As the couple raised money for the stadium, they simultaneously sought student support, raising $45 million from private donors to be used for scholarships throughout the University.
Lindahl has traveled all over Minnesota reaching out to potential donors, going to people’s houses for dinner, to VFWs, farms, and resorts. She says she’s met a lot of interesting people who are excited about Gopher football.
“We’ve gotten much more out of this than we’ve given,” she says. “It’s just amazing. People are tied together by this great University. That’s been the joy.”
A past president of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association, Lindahl has longtime ties to her alma mater. Both of her parents taught at the University, and she remembers coming to Gopher football games as a young girl. She and John met while they were students here (he graduated from what is now the Carlson School of Management in ’68), and they held their wedding reception at the Campus Club. John is now managing general partner at Norwest Equity Partners, a Minneapolis private-equity firm.
After graduating with a degree in elementary education, Nancy taught second grade for six years in the Robbinsdale school district. She became a reading and math tutor in the Minneapolis Public Schools following the birth of her two children. She then spent a few years at KARE 11-TV as community affairs director before becoming a full-time community volunteer.
The self-described “meeting junkie” serves on a slew of nonprofit boards, including the University of Minnesota Foundation Board of Trustees and the Advisory Board for the College of Design’s Buckman Fellowship for Leadership in Philanthropy.
One of the Lindahls’ philanthropic priorities is giving back to the institutions that prepared them. They funded the Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl Professorship for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in the College of Education and Human Development, as well as a professorship in the Carlson School of Management.
The professorships are designed to allow gifted scholars to do research with the money upfront and no strings attached, Lindahl explains, which encourages exploration and fosters recruitment. “Research is the cornerstone of a great university,” she says.
Story by Jenny Woods | Photo by Justin Evidon | January 2010
