David and Dana Dornsife Give $40 Million to World Vision

“I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet," he wrote.

A year ago, Bezos and his former wife, MacKenzie Bezos, topped the Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle’s annual list of the people who gave the most to charity. They had given $2 billion, primarily to help struggling families, in a donation announced a few months before they made public their plans to divorce.

Read more about Bezos's gift.

World Vision

David and Dana Dornsife pledged $40 million for the charity’s water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in 24 African countries. The Dornsifes stipulated that every dollar they donate must be matched by other donors.

David Dornsife is chairman of the Herrick Corporation, a steel company in Stockton, Calif. Dana Dornsife is an interior designer who co-founded a lighting design and architectural electronics consulting firm in 1991, and in 2006 she started the Lazarex Cancer Foundation.

Including their most recent donation, the couple have given World Vision $115 million over the years and have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors to charity twice since 2011.

Yale Divinity School

George and Carol Bauer committed $15 million to pay for the construction of a new student-housing campus, called Living Village, that will be built with environmentally friendly materials and will not rely on the utility grid for its energy.

All of the new housing complex’s energy will come from the sun, all its water will come from onsite precipitation, and all its waste will be processed on site.

The Bauers are longtime donors to charity who give extensively to health care, education, and human-services groups. George Bower is a retired IBM executive, and Carol Bauer is a hospital chaplain who specializes in child-maternal health and serving families who have lost an infant.

Library of Congress

Billionaire David Rubenstein gave $10 million to help pay for a project aimed at better connecting library visitors with history and improving access to the vast collections held by the national library.

Specifically, the money will go toward a number of enhancements to the library’s historic Thomas Jefferson Building. Among them: a new ground-level orientation center to help visitors better navigate the library and understand its history, a new visitor learning lab, and new exhibitions to feature the library’s holdings.

Rubenstein co-founded the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm in Washington. He is a longtime donor who primarily backs higher education, historical preservation and monuments, and the arts. He has appeared on the Philanthropy 50 six times since 2010, and in recent years has others to give to what he calls patriotic philanthropy, the support of efforts that tell the story of American history.

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

William Dillard II pledged $10 million, of which $6.5 million has been paid, to support the university’s accounting program, which will be renamed the William Dillard Department of Accounting for the donor’s late father.

Dillard II is chairman and CEO of Dillard’s Inc., a luxury department store chain with headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., and a 1966 graduate of the university.

His father founded Dillard’s in 1938 with one department store in Mineral Springs, Ark., and grew the company over time. He, too, was an alumnus of the university, earning an accounting degree in 1935. He died in 2002.

University of Illinois

Don and Anne Edwards donated $10 million to support scholarships, athletics, and the Illinois Innovation Network and Discovery Partners Institute; the latter are two education and research programs led by the University of Illinois System.

The Edwards are 1988 graduates of the university’s Gies College of Business. Don Edwards founded Flexpoint Ford, a private-equity firm focused on the health care and financial services industries. He currently serves as chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees. Anne Edwards is an accountant.

University of California at Irvine

Stacey Nicholas gave $5 million to endow the university’s Office of Access & Inclusion, which will be named for her.

The money will go toward efforts to recruit and retain students from populations who are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math and will primarily serve students in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences

Nicholas, an electrical engineer, founded Opus Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes STEM education outreach and the arts. She was formerly married to Henry Nicholas, a billionaire who co-founded the Broadcom Corporation with Henry Samueli, the engineering school’s namesake.

Animal Humane Society

Ken Melrose donated $3 million to help pay for a new animal adoption and care center.

Melrose is a retired CEO and chairman of Toro Company, a landscaping equipment manufacturer in Bloomington, Minn. He founded Leading by Serving, a company whose mission is aimed at advancing the principles of "servant leadership" in organizations.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.