A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Hunter College School of Nursing
Leonard Lauder gave $52 million to expand the school’s nurse-practitioner graduate program. A nurse practitioner is a registered nurse with an advanced degree who is allowed to write prescriptions, order diagnostic tests, and care for patients in other ways that previously only physicians could. Lauder is the billionaire chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies, the cosmetics company created in 1946 by his parents, Estée and Joseph Lauder.
The donation will also support a new community-care nurse-practitioner program named for the donor’s late wife, Evelyn Lauder, that will provide annual $30,000 stipends for 25 students who promise to work in medically underserved parts of New York. Evelyn Lauder graduated from Hunter College in 1958 and worked early in her career as a public-school teacher before joining her husband in running Estée Lauder Companies. She died in 2011.
This is Leonard Lauder’s second big donation to a nursing program this year. In February, he gave $125 million to University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater, to establish the Leonard A. Lauder Community Care Nurse Practitioner Program, which will recruit students from underrepresented backgrounds to study at the university’s nursing school.
University of California at San Diego
Hanna and Mark Gleiberman pledged $20 million to establish the Hanna and Mark Gleiberman Center for Glaucoma Research and support research on advanced glaucoma, in an effort to protect and restore the vision of those who suffer from the condition. The new center will be housed in the university’s Viterbi Family Vision Research Center.
Mark Gleiberman founded MG Properties Group, a San Diego real-estate investment firm. He serves as trustee of the UC San Diego Foundation Board and is a founding board member of the UC San Diego Real Estate and Development program.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
MacKenzie Scott gave $15 million to this faith-based nonprofit that helps refugees, asylum seekers, and other vulnerable immigrants in the United States. The charity’s officials said in a news release that they plan to use the unrestricted gift to support the group’s trauma-informed mental-health care services, its New American Cities workforce-development program, and its efforts to care for unaccompanied children through foster-care programming and other services. The money will also be used to expand the group’s welcome centers for families seeking asylum in the United States.
Scott is a novelist who helped start the online retail giant Amazon with her former husband, Jeff Bezos. With an estimated $28 billion fortune, she is one of the wealthiest women in the world. She has given more than $13 billion in mostly unrestricted gifts to charity since 2020 and has devoted much of that money to nonprofits that usually do not receive multimillion-dollar gifts and to charities that help underserved or overlooked populations. She appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors of 2020.
Clemson University
Mark and Kathryn Richardson gave $10 million mainly to support scholarships, the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business, teacher-retention programs within the College of Education, and several other education efforts. The couple have directed that $4 million of their gift be used to match donations from others donors to support the Clemson University General Scholarship Endowment and Clemson’s College-Level General Scholarship Endowments
Mark Richardson founded MAR Real Estate, a real-estate development and investment company, and RAM Investments, a private-equity firm. He co-founded with his father, Jerry Richardson, the Carolina Panthers, a professional football team in Charlotte, N.C. He was the team’s first employee and spent the franchise’s first 17 years as director of business operations and president. The family sold the franchise in 2018 for nearly $2.3 billion.
Mark Richardson earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Clemson in 1983 and played on the university’s football team while he was a student there. He currently serves on the university’s Board of Trustees. In 2016, the couple gave Clemson $1 million for a scholarship fund that aids at-risk high-school students.
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Andrew Sabin gave $10 million through his Andrew Sabin Family Foundation to support the James P. Allison Institute, where scientists focus on translational and clinical research that integrates immunobiology across a range of disciplines. The money will go toward recruiting and hiring more scientists and backing the postdoctoral program and fellowship holders.
Sabin owns Sabin Metal Corporation, a refinery of silver, gold, and platinum. He serves on the cancer center’s Board of Visitors. He gave MD Anderson $30 million in 2015 for research fellowships.
University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Wendy and Wayne Holman gave $5 million to support the newly named Holman Biotech Commons, the university’s biotechnology library, which was renovated last year to include technology and other upgrades and more space for collaborative projects for students and faculty across university disciplines.
Wendy Holman is a former investment manager who leads Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, a Miami biotechnology company the couple founded in 2015. She is a 1997 graduate of Penn’s Wharton School and in 2019 was named to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, which advises the White House and the U.S. secretary of health and human services on the U.S. government’s response to the AIDS epidemic.
Wayne Holman is a physician who founded Ridgeback Capital, a hedge fund that invests in pharmaceutical businesses. In 2021, the couple gave the university $5 million to create the Holman Africa Initiative, which supports students and faculty who are researching and teaching in and about Africa.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
