A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Loomis Chaffee School
Private equity titan Henry Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée, pledged $100 million to endow financial aid, faculty and staff compensation, and education programs, and an additional $5 million to back the Kravis Scholars Program, which the couple established in 1989 to support students from underrepresented and socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Kravises are directing $50 million of the total to endow the Henry R. Kravis ’63 Opportunity Initiative Scholars Fund, which provides scholarship money and helps cover the cost of books, computers, and other necessities for students with financial needs; $30 million to the Henry R. Kravis ’63 Fund for Institutional Priorities to pay for a range of education programming; and $20 million to the Sheila A. Culbert Fund for Faculty and Staff Support.
Henry Kravis co-founded Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, a New York private-equity firm, and Marie-Josée Kravis is an economist. The couple are billionaires and longtime donors to higher education, medical care, cancer research and treatment, and arts and culture. They appeared in the 2008 edition of the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest givers.
Bowling Green State University
Robert and Ellen Thompson pledged $76.9 million through their Thompson Foundation to expand the Thompson Working Families Scholarships, a program the couple started at the university a decade ago to help ensure students graduate in four years time and with little college loan debt.
The Thompsons earned teaching degrees from Bowling Green in the 1950s and started their careers as school teachers in Detroit. In 1959, they co-founded Thompson McCully Company, a road-paving business in Grand Rapids, Mich. They sold the company in 1999 for $422 million and then gave a total of $128 million of the proceeds to 550 employees of the company.
The couple donated $27 million to the program in 2021 and a total of $16.9 million between 2014 and 2023. Including their latest donation, they have given roughly $121 million to the effort since it launched, which has been matched by the university and other donors.
Shenandoah University
Clare and Wilbur Dove gave $20 million to build a performing and visual arts center. The couple have been supporters of the university for 65 years and have given to fund campus construction projects and to endow scholarships.
Wilbur Dove founded National Development Associates, an investment firm in Vienna, Va., that he led for 30 years before retiring. He was also a real estate developer focused on affordable and low-income housing.
Dove earned a two-year degree in 1959 from what was then called Shenandoah College and Conservatory, in Dayton, Va. He was a member of the last class to study in Dayton before the school moved to Winchester, Va. In 1991, the college and conservatory became Shenandoah University.
Collier Community Foundation
Jeffrey Provol left roughly $17 million to support a range of local charities in the Naples, Fla. area where he lived. He was a regular donor to nonprofits in the area during the last 15 years of his life.
Originally from the Chicago area, Provol‘s father founded the George J. Provol Company and Classified Inc., a mail order advertising company in 1930. Jeff Provol took over when his father passed away in 1989. He moved to Florida after selling the company in 2005. Provol died last year at 81.
Walnut Hill School of the Arts
Kevin and Sandra Delbridge gave $1.75 million to establish the Delbridge Family Promise Scholarship Fund, which will provide financial aid to students whose families maintain a combined income of $150,000 or less. The fund will award annual $50,000 scholarships to five to ten students over a three-year period beginning in September.
Kevin Delbridge is a senior advisor and a former senior managing director at HarbourVest, a private equity firm in Boston. Earlier in his career he worked for CIGNA’s Venture Capital Group and was an auditor with Coopers & Lybrand, an accounting firm. The Delbridges have children who graduated from the school.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.