Bainbridge Island Institute

With a mission to “Change Business for Good,” Libba Pinchot and Gifford Pinchot III started the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) in 2002 and offered one of the country’s first MBA in Sustainable Business. This revolutionary approach to business engaged students wishing to integrate social justice and environmental sustainability values into their business education. The early years attracted a diverse range of faculty, students, and followers; people from a wide range of backgrounds, from artists to CEOs, who felt discouraged by traditional models of business and wanted something new and positive. Together with their friends Sherman Severin and Jill Bamburg, the school’s founding dean, the Pinchots launched an industry movement by offering programs intentionally integrating sustainability – environmentally and socially responsible practices – with traditional business education, empowering students to harness the power of business for good and developing business solutions for the world’s most pressing challenges. In addition to expanding the San Francisco based MBA and MPA degrees in Sustainable Management, Presidio Graduate School is continuing the legacy of Gifford and Libba Pinchot with the MBA in Sustainable Systems Degree where students spend four consecutive days per month collaborating with their classmates at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island and working on real world wicked problems. The future of our planet depends on these new leaders.