A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Nova Southeastern University
David Husman pledged $20 million to support research and other programs within the newly named David and Cathy Husman Neuroscience Institute, its Cathy J. Husman ALS Center, and the David and Cathy Husman Endowed Chair for Neuroscience.
ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive, fatal neurological disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement and breathing.
Husman is a Chicago real estate developer who serves as chairman of Heartland Real Estate Partners, which he founded in 1990. He also co-founded MB Financial, a large commercial bank with headquarters in Chicago. He lost his wife, Cathy, to ALS in 2023. Husman gave the university $10 million that year to support the neuroscience institute, the ALS center, and the endowed professorship.
“In my estimation, the most devastating and horrible disease is ALS,” Husman said in a news release. “The motivation behind my gift is to try and rid the world of one of the worst plagues that affects mankind.”
University of Maryland at Baltimore and University of Maryland at College Park
Edward and Jennifer St. John gave $10 million through their Edward St. John Foundation to launch the Edward and Jennifer St. John Center for Translational Engineering and Medicine, a collaboration between the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the A. James Clark School of Engineering.
Together, researchers from the medical and engineering schools will work together on translational engineering and medical projects. The money will also support professorships in bioengineering, and undergraduate and graduate student awards.
Edward St. John earned an engineering degree from University of Maryland at College Park, and in 1971 he founded St. John Properties, a Baltimore real estate development firm that has developed commercial and residential properties throughout the United States.
University of Montana Foundation
Dennis and Phyllis Washington gave $9.4 million through their Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation to establish the Phyllis J. Washington Children and Educators Initiative within the Phyllis J. Washington College of Education. The new program aims to address some of the state’s biggest challenges in education and behavioral health by reshaping how teachers and mental health counselors are trained to address mental health issues in school-age children.
The donation will also back the Phyllis J. Washington Scholars program, which will provide financial aid to students in the university’s bachelor’s degree teaching or master’s degree counseling programs. Students in the program must commit to teaching in Montana schools for three years after graduation, and will be eligible to have up to a third of their student loans repaid for each year of service in Montana schools, for up to three years.
Phyllis Washington earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the university in 1964 and taught elementary school in Missoula, Mont., early in her career. She later started an interior decorating business and owns Maison Felice, a Palm Desert, Calif., antiques store.
Dennis Washington is a billionaire who founded the Washington Companies, a Missoula, Mont., corporation that owns copper mining, marine transportation, shipbuilding, and heavy equipment businesses. He started his career working for an uncle’s construction business, and then established Washington Construction, which would later become the Washington Companies.
Cone Health
Jackie and Steve Bell gave $7.5 million through their Bell Foundation to support the Greensboro, N.C., health care system’s efforts to improve the overall health of the region. The money will help the organization expand heart care, cancer services and other programs. Steve Bell founded Bell Partners, an apartment investment and management company in Greensboro, N.C. He started the company in 1976 and now serves as its chairman emeritus.
University of Texas at El Paso
Paul Foster pledged $2.5 million through his Paul L. Foster Family Foundation to bolster the university’s men’s and women’s sports programs and upgrade facilities and operations ahead of the university’s entrance into the Mountain West Conference, a collegiate athletic association, next year.
Foster founded and leads Franklin Mountain Investments, an El Paso investment firm. He founded the El Paso oil refinery company, Western Refining, in 1997 and in 2017 it was acquired by Tesoro for $6.4 billion. He started his career working in oil fields as a teenager and later worked as an accountant for small oil refineries.
Project Healthy Minds
Jeff and Gail Yabuki gave $1 million to help the mental health technology organization expand its services and advocacy and research efforts. The nonprofit provides a range of online services to help people locate and connect with therapists, support groups, crisis hotlines and other mental health services, and works to destigmatize mental illness.
Jeff Yabuki is CEO of InvestCloud, a technology company that serves financial firms, and chairman of Motive Partners, a private equity firm in New York. He served as CEO of Fiserv, a financial services and payments technology company, from 2005 to 2020.
The couple have given big to other mental health programs and have worked to raise awareness about mental health by speaking publicly about Jeff Yabuki’s much-beloved late brother, Craig Yabuki, who struggled with mental illness for many years. In 2021, Jeff and Gail Yabuki gave $20 million to the Children’s Wisconsin health system to support the organization’s extensive effort to increase families’ access to therapeutic mental health services.
The Trevor Project
Jeff Atwood and his family gave $1 million to back the nonprofit’s suicide prevention efforts and programs aimed at helping LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. In addition to the Trevor Project gifts, Atwood and his family also gave donations of $1 million apiece to Children’s Hunger Fund, First Generation Investors, Global Refuge, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, PEN America, Planned Parenthood, and Team Rubicon.
In a blog post announcing the donations, Atwood wrote that he hoped his gifts “encourage every American to contribute soon, however you can, to organizations you feel are effectively helping those most currently in need here in America.”
Atwood is a software developer who co-founded Stack Exchange, an online network of popular websites where computer programmers, computer system administrators, and other technology workers ask and answer programming and other technology-related questions. He later founded Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, a company that operates Discourse, an open-source discussion platform.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
