Finding the Cause
By Eleanor Hunt
David Jacobs, BBA ’73
Owner
CDJ Family Investment, LTD.
Dallas, Texas
Growing up in Waxahachie, Texas, David Jacobs heard his father talk about helping people and making the world a better place.
“Although we did not have a lot of money, my father lived his life that way. I have tried to emulate him,” Jacobs said.
Today, the catalyst for his altruism is CDJ Family Investment, Ltd., which invests in private equity, real estate and the stock market.
“My goal in life has been to invest in the right manner, grow the amount of assets and give as much money as possible to various charities,” Jacobs said.
Through CDJ, Jacobs and his wife, Cher, donate large sums of money and time to worthwhile causes, including the Center for Brain Health, whose research has benefited more than 100,000 elementary and middle school students, along with law enforcement personnel, emergency responders and professional athletes. He served two years as board chairman.
For 12 years, Jacobs has been a board member of the World Affairs Council, which has collaborated with the Hankamer School of Business’ McBride Center for International Business on its annual symposium. He also served two terms on the HSB Dean’s Advisory Board.
Jacobs has supported and volunteered on the boards of Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas and The Senior Source, which helps older adults. He continues as a board member of a foundation benefiting wildlife and the environment worldwide that he co-founded more than 15 years ago. In addition, he is treasurer of his Neighborhood Crime Watch.
“You cannot help people unless you get involved with them,” he said. “It is not only monetary means, but also your time. I tell students to find a cause they can make their passion at an early age.”
As a youth, Jacobs concentrated on sports and most importantly, academics, which enabled him to attend Southwestern University on an athletic scholarship. During his freshman year, an injury shortened his sports career, so Jacobs transferred to Baylor in the fall of 1970, leveraging a Phillips Scholarship to Baylor he earned after high school. Henry Phillips, who refined the screwdriver for industrial manufacturing, established the scholarship.
“I wanted to attend Baylor from a young age,” Jacobs said.
He was a member of Beta Gamma Sigma and Alpha Chi and won several Accounting awards. When he graduated with a BBA degree in Accounting in May 1973, Jacobs had received job offers from seven of the eight largest accounting firms. He started out at Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co., the predecessor to KPMG LLP.
“I attribute those offers to my Baylor Accounting education,” he said. “The professors were top-notch.”
For 19 years, Jacobs was a founding partner and an officer of E2M Partners, LLC, which structured and managed real estate equity investment funds.
“We made our investors a significant amount of money and as a result, we did well ourselves,” Jacobs said.
Now, he is producing similar results at CDJ to finance good works.
“I will have succeeded when people say, after Cher and I pass away, ‘He did a good job of increasing CDJ’s asset base to give increasing amounts of money to charity each year,’” he said.
