A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Hoag Hospital Foundation
David and Diana Sun gave $50 million through their Sun Family Foundation to expand Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian’s Irvine, Calif., campus. David Sun co-founded Kingston Technology, a company that creates software storage and memory products for computers and consumer electronics, in 1987.
“Our gift is no more important or meaningful than any other gift to Hoag, no matter the amount, if it comes from the heart and is made in the hope of helping others,” David Sun said in a news release. “Diana and I simply hope this gift will inspire others to give whatever they can.”
The Suns are billionaires and have been involved with the medical center for a number of years. Diana Sun previously served on the foundation’s Board of Directors and currently is a member of the hospital’s expansion committee. In 2020, the Kingston Technology Foundation gave $2 million to Hoag’s Covid-19 Fund.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Peter and Paula Lunder pledged $50 million through their Lunder Foundation to establish three interconnected education programs for new doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals.
The Peter L. Slavin, MD, Academy for Applied Learning in Health Care will house lifelong training and education programs for medical and health care workers. The academy’s namesake served as president of the hospital for 18 years until stepping down last year.
The Lunder Learning Hospital will be a center where students, trainees, and staff across the institution can train in a hospital-like setting on lifelike simulators and instructional models, with actors portraying patients. The Lunder Learning Hospital will also incorporate new technologies, such as virtual reality, into its training exercises to prepare care providers for different medical-care scenarios.
Both new programs will be endowed by the MGH Learning Endowment, which the Lunders’ gift will also be used to establish. Peter Lunder is the former president of the Dexter Shoe Company, a Maine shoe manufacturer that was sold to Berkshire Hathaway for $433 million in 1993.
University of Chicago Law School
David Rubenstein gave $15 million to back the David M. Rubenstein Scholars Program, which provides three-year full-tuition scholarships. The program was established in 2010 with an initial gift of $10 million from Rubenstein, who serves on the university’s Board of Trustees. Including this latest gift, he has donated a total of $61 million toward the scholarships.
Rubenstein is a billionaire who co-founded the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm in Washington. A scholarship student himself, he graduated from the law school in 1973 and later served as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and as President Jimmy Carter’s deputy assistant for domestic policy. He has written several books and hosts The David Rubenstein Program: Peer-to-Peer Conversations, a television talk show where he interviews prominent figures in business and academia.
A donor to many nonprofit institutions throughout the country, Rubenstein practices what he calls Patriotic Philanthropy. He has given extensively to the National Park Service, the National Archives, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the Smithsonian Institution. He has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors six times since 2010.
California State University at Los Angeles
Mary Levin Cutler gave $10 million to establish the Mary Levin School of the Arts. Housed within the College of Arts and Letters, the Mary Levin School of the Arts will house the departments of Art; Music; Television, Film, and Media Studies; and Theatre and Dance, as well as the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery.
Cutler is a violinist, singer, and ethnomusicologist who earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the university in 1955. Along with her cash gift, Cutler donated 166 instruments from around the world to the college. The collection includes percussion, string, and wind instruments, along with several noncategorized instruments and numerous recordings, books, sheet music, and memorabilia.
Harvard Business School
Howard Cox gave $10 million to support the school’s Health Care Initiative, a program that was started in 2005 and works to promote faculty research and support the development of educational programs with the goal of finding ways to drive down the cost and improve the quality of health care in the United States.
Cox earned an MBA from the business school in 1969 and served for two years in the U.S. Army on assignment to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In 1971, he joined Greylock Partners, a venture-capital firm in Burlington. Mass., where he has led the firm’s investments in many health care and medical-device businesses.
U.S. Air Force Academy Foundation
John Martinson pledged $10 million to broaden the newly named Martinson Academy Scholars Program by creating more opportunities for cadets enrolled in the honors program. The money will also be used to hire more faculty.
Martinson founded Martinson Ventures, a venture-capital firm in Newton, Pa. He graduated from the academy in 1970 and served in the Vietnam War. He flew more than 150 North Vietnam missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He is a longtime donor to his alma mater.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
