Billionaire industrialist David Koch is best known for the large donations he has made to Republican candidates and PACs, but much of his philanthropy has nothing to do with politics.
The 76-year-old energy and manufacturing tycoon is fond of ballet, and he recently donated $2.5 million for a historically rooted production of “The Sleeping Beauty” by the choreographer Alexi Ratmansky at the American Ballet Theater.
“When I was a teenager I loved fairy tales and romantic stories, and I thought Sleeping Beauty was an ideal subject,” he said. “I couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome and I think everyone loved it.”
Mr. Koch has quietly given the ballet company a total of $21 million — a small slice of the $1.3 billion he has given over the years. Although he has declined to sign the Giving Pledge, he is one of America’s most prolific donors, appearing on The Chronicle’s list of top 50 donors seven times since 2006, often near the top.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Koch pledged to accelerate his philanthropy. Likely beneficiaries include the arts and medical research, two causes he has given to repeatedly. And a recent article in the National Review suggested that Mr. Koch and his brother Charles may be pulling back from their heavy spending on elections to focus more on supporting think tanks.
Cultural Giving
In the Chronicle interview, David Koch made clear how much pleasure he gets from cultural donations, which have focused on institutions in his adopted hometown of New York. He gave $100 million in 2008 to renovate the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, now called the David H. Koch Theater, and he has given nearly $79 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he is a trustee.
He is particularly proud of his $65 million donation to the museum in 2012 to support a major renovation of its front plaza and surrounding grounds. Mr. Koch describes the renovation as “magnificent,” “beautiful,” and “spectacular.”
Still, some of his cultural giving has attracted controversy. Last year, environmental activists accused Mr. Koch of supporting groups that deny climate change and petitioned to have him removed from the board of the American Museum of Natural History, to which he has donated more than $20 million. (His name adorns the institution’s Dinosaur Wing.) He served 23 years on the museum’s board before stepping down in January. Both the museum and Mr. Koch said at the time his decision was not related to the petition.
Cancer Survivor
Mr. Koch amassed a $43 billion fortune through his family’s Koch Industries, a multinational corporation based in Wichita, Kan., where he grew up.
But wealth and privilege have not insulated him from the indignities of mortality. Another side of his philanthropy reflects his more than 20-year battle with prostate cancer.
Diagnosed with the disease in 1992, he has been in remission for the last five years and says he feels lucky to be in such good health.
[[relatedcontent align="left” size="half-width”]] “I went through one treatment after another and it’s remarkable how I’ve been able to postpone the advance of the cancer I was expecting to pursue me,” he says.
His experiences with the disease have led Mr. Koch to devote more than $517 million — nearly half of his giving to date — to help those suffering with cancer and support those working to cure it.
Big Money for Research
Mr. Koch considers the $100 million he gave the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 to create the David H. Koch Center for Cancer Research to be among his most important donations. He has contributed an additional $82.4 million to MIT, his alma mater, and has served on its Board of Trustees since 1988.
He also counts as significant donations a $101 million gift to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital for a patient-care center; $29.5 million to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for research; and his gifts to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, totaling $225 million since 2006, for treatment, study, and a center for the immunological control of the disease.
Despite such sums, Mr. Koch says he doesn’t think his charitable giving is particularly remarkable and says he is planning more.
“I was rather modest in my contributions when I was in my 20s, but as our company has become more and more profitable, I’ve felt a moral responsibility to make sizable contributions,” he says. “I mean to do that for the remainder of my life.”
