A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Claremont McKenna College
The billionaire George Roberts gave $140 million to expand the campus and match donations from other donors. The money will help pay for new academic facilities and student housing, recreation and playing fields, pedestrian walkways, and gathering spaces. The new construction will double the size of the campus.
Roberts co-founded Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, an international investment firm in New York, where he serves as co-executive chairman. He graduated from the college in 1966, and, including this latest donation, has given Claremont at least $211.3 million since 2006. He appeared on the Chronicle’s 2012 Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors for the $50 million unrestricted gift he gave the college that year.
Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Museum of the American Revolution
The late Gerry Lenfest left roughly $50 million apiece to the two institutions, both of which he and his wife, Marguerite, had a hand in establishing. Officials at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism said in a news release that they plan to use their Lenfest bequest for endowment, as did officials at the Museum of the American Revolution, where Gerry Lenfest served as chairman of the Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2016, the year before it opened to the public.
Lenfest founded the cable-broadcast company Lenfest Communications and gave away more than $1 billion to Philadelphia-area nonprofits before he died in 2018. He was deeply involved in creating the Museum of the American Revolution. He secured a site for the museum in Philadelphia’s historic city center and guided the museum’s $150 million capital campaign. The Lenfests gave the museum more than $60 million during Gerry Lenfest’s lifetime.
In 2016, Lenfest founded the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and donated his ownership of the Philadelphia Inquirer to the nonprofit. Today the institute is the noncontrolling owner of the Inquirer and provides it with targeted grants but does not direct either business or editorial operations. It also supports an array of public-service journalism efforts throughout the country. Lenfest gave the institute $20 million for endowment in 2016 and pledged to match up to $40 million in giving by other donors the following year.
Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning
Mui Ho gave $25 million to endow and name the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities, where her gift will also support research and programs dedicated to planning, designing, and building resilient cities and helping policy makers and others address environmental and other challenges facing cities today.
Ho is an architect who founded her Berkeley, Calif., architectural firm, Mui Ho Architect, in 1979 after working at firms in New Haven, Conn., and the San Francisco Bay Area. She taught at the University of California at Berkeley in its College of Environmental Design’s Department of Architecture for 33 years before retiring in 2008. Ho earned her bachelor of science and bachelor of architecture degrees from Cornell in 1962 and 1966, respectively.
University of Pennsylvania Athletics
Jay Alix gave $17.5 million to support the construction of a new indoor track and field facility. Alix founded AlixPartners, a consulting firm in New York that focuses on turnarounds of troubled corporations.
Alix graduated from the university’s Wharton School in 1977. He said in a news release that his time on the university’s track and field team was memorable and inspired him to give the gift.
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Richard and Karla Chernick pledged $13 million to endow a fund that will support the construction of a new building.
Chernick, who earned his JD from USC Gould in 1970, joined the Gibson Dunn law firm in 1971 and became partner in 1977, specializing in commercial litigation and domestic and international arbitration. He currently serves as vice president and managing director of Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services’s arbitration practice. An expert on alternative dispute resolution, Chernick has served as a lecturer at USC Gould since 2014 and is a past president of the law school’s Board of Councilors.
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County
Adrienne Arsht gave $11 million to endow a fully paid internship program, arts education, and other efforts. Of the total, Arsht used $1 million to challenge and match a $1 million donation from another donor.
Arsht is a lawyer and businesswoman who divides her time, business, and philanthropy interests primarily between Miami and Washington. She served as chair of TotalBank, a Miami bank, for many years before she sold it to Banco Popular Spain in 2007.
The performing-arts center was named for Arsht in 2008 when she gave the institution $30 million. She has given extensively over the years to arts and culture organizations, higher-education institutions, Hispanic causes, public policy, and resilience efforts.
University of South Florida
Kate Tiedemann and Ellen Cotton gave $10 million to back the financial-technology programs in the Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance, one of six schools in the Muma College of Business. The couple gave $4 million for such programs in 2020.
Tiedemann emigrated from Germany at age 18 and went on to found Katena Products, a company that today provides ophthalmologic surgical instruments and related products to hospitals, surgical centers, and ophthalmic and optometric offices worldwide. Cotton is a banker who later owned and managed a Hallmark franchise.
The couple are longtime donors to the university. Tiedemann gave $10 million in 2014 to name the School of Business and Finance, and Cotton has donated $1.1 million for scholarships and a fund to support student organizations. They also previously gave $3 million to endow the Tiedemann-Cotton Deanship at the Tiedemann School.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
