Canadian b-schools keep raising big bucks

For the longest time, the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario was Canada's undeniably dominant business school. But in the past two decades, serious competition has popped up - and some would argue far surpassed Ivey - in large part because of private funds the rival schools have raised.

The latest example is the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, which just capped off a $70-million revamp. $52-million of this total came from community fundraising led by lead donors like Robert Lee, the head of real estate firm Prospero Group.

Other recent fundraising initiatives include campaigns such as Rotman's $200-million fundraising drive, $140-million of which will come from private donations, as well as big one-off donations, like the $22-million cheque Marcel Desautels wrote to McGill's Faculty of Management. (I'm a graduate of this school so clearly it's the country's best.)

Tim Kiladze graduated from the BCom program at the Desautels Faculty of Management in 2007.

Read full article: The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2012