A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Break Through Cancer
The Goodwin family has made a challenge pledge of $250 million to endow this new foundation in Cambridge, Mass., that will back research on four types of cancer: acute myelogenous leukemia, glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer.
It seeks to raise an additional $250 million to develop clinical trials and cures at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.
William Goodwin Jr. is the retired chairman and president of the Riverstone group, the family’s real-estate development firm in Richmond, Va. With his wife, Alice, and their family, they made the pledge in honor of their late son, William Goodwin III, who died of cancer in January 2020 at the age of 51. His estate is contributing to the gift as well.
Wofford College
Jerome Richardson has donated $150 million to his alma mater to augment its endowment, with a particular focus on boosting need-based scholarships and student activities including internships, opportunities for off-campus research for both students and faculty, and entrepreneurial programs. The gift will also endow a fund to maintain and repair campus buildings and raise the minimum wage for all college support staff to $15 per hour.
Richardson retired in 1995 as CEO of the Flagstar restaurant group. He attended Wofford on a football scholarship, and following his graduation in 1958 played two seasons for the Baltimore Colts.
Including this new gift, Richardson and his wife, Rosalind, have given a total of $262.6 million to the college.
University of Chicago
Susan Kiphart gave $25 million through the Kiphart Family Foundation to establish the Susan and Richard Kiphart Center for Global Health and Social Development. The new center, which will be housed within the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, will bring together scholars from different disciplines at the university to develop solutions for disease, health infrastructure, and community health and well-being in West Africa and other low- and middle-income communities worldwide.
Richard Kiphart, who died in 2018, was an investment banker who worked at William Blair & Co. for more than 50 years. The couple bought a 2,500-acre pineapple farm in Ghana and have used its profits to pay for health and education improvements in the region by building schools and digging wells to generate safe and accessible drinking water.
Morgan State University
Tina and Calvin Tyler Jr. have committed $20 million to bolster the endowment of a scholarship fund they created in 2002 at this historically Black university. The couple previously added to its endowment with a gift of $5 million in 2016.
Calvin Tyler Jr. was the first member of his family to attend university when he became a student at Morgan State College in 1961, planning to major in business administration. However, owing to the cost of tuition, he left his studies before graduation and took a job as a UPS driver in Baltimore in 1964. He retired as senior vice president of operations at UPS in 1998 and continues to serve on the shipping company’s Board of Directors.
Graduate Center at the City University of New York
Jim and Cathleen Stone have given $9.5 million through their foundation to back research at the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality on wealth accumulation among the richest people, growing income inequality, and other drivers of intergenerational poverty in the United States and around the world.
Jim Stone is the founder and CEO of the Plymouth Rock group of insurance companies, as well as an economist and author of books on insurance, finance, and economics. Cathleen Stone is the president of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Family Foundation.
University of Maryland at College Park
Michael and Eugenia Brin are giving $9 million through the Brin Family Foundation to create the Maya Brin Institute for New Performance within the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. The new institute will add courses to its performing-arts curriculum, back research and new faculty positions, endow undergraduate scholarships, renovate its classroom and studio spaces, and upgrade its technology.
The couple are the parents of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and both taught at the university for years. Michael Brin is a professor emeritus of mathematics. Maya Brin taught in the Russian department for nearly a decade. They have given several times to the performing-arts school in the past, including $1 million last year to endow a professorship in dance.
University of California at Davis
Lois and Darryl Goss have given $1.5 million to endow a presidential chair in African American and African studies, which will fund teaching, research, and outreach programs about the history and culture of people of African descent in the United States and around the world. The chair will be named for his parents, Austin and Arutha Goss.
Darryl Goss is CEO of Inform Diagnostics, an Indianapolis pathology company that analyzes specimens for medical subspecialties. The couple met as students at the university. He graduated in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in Afro-American studies, and Lois Goss graduated in 1985 with a degree in sociology.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
