A roundup of notable gifts compiled by The Chronicle:
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan gave $30 million through their Chan Zuckerberg Foundation to create Reach Every Reader, a program that aims to help children read at their grade level by the end of third grade. The effort is a partnership between Harvard’s school of education and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Integrated Learning Initiative. Researchers will develop and test a web-based screening tool to diagnose the underlying causes of reading difficulties and will create personalized approaches to build children’s reading skills that could be adopted by teachers and families.
The couple put more than $1.8 billion into their foundation last year, placing them second on The Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the most-generous donors.
Manhattan College
Thomas and Mary Alice O’Malley donated $25 million to increase student scholarships and grants, and to support programs of the college’s School of Business, which will be named for the donors.
Thomas O’Malley is a retired chairman and chief executive of PBF, a publicly held oil-refining company. He graduated from the college in 1963 and served as chairman of its Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2012.
Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation
Oprah Winfrey transferred Weight Watchers International stock valued at about $22.5 million to her philanthropy, which supports education and human-services groups.
Winfrey has been a spokeswoman for the weight-loss company. She bought a 10 percent stake in the business in 2015 and has been credited with helping to turn around the company’s fortunes in recent years. She has landed on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 report six times.
Good Samaritan Hospital
Charles Munger gave $21 million to improve the Los Angeles hospital, including an expansion of the emergency department and shoring up the building against seismic shocks.
Munger, who is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by investor Warren Buffett, has served as chairman of the hospital’s Board of Trustees for 31 years. He has given extensively to nonprofits and has been included on the Philanthropy 50 four times.
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at University of Miami Medical School
Lois Pope, widow of the National Enquirer’s late publisher Generoso Pope, donated $12 million to establish a program of research on macular degeneration and retinal diseases, which will be named for her. Pope’s late mother, Anastasia Berrodin, went blind after suffering from macular degeneration.
Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada
The Fertitta family pledged $10 million for operations and renovations to the charity’s Las Vegas campus, including improvements to the emergency shelter for homeless men.
Frank Fertitta III is the CEO of Station Casinos. He and his brother Lorenzo Fertitta owned Ultimate Fighting Championship, a martial-arts promoter, from 2001 until they sold the business in 2016 for $4 billion.
University of Oregon
Lorry Lokey, founder of the Business Wire news service, gave $10 million to endow up to five faculty positions at the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact.
Lokey has given nearly $800 million to schools and colleges in the United States and Israel, including about $140 million to the University of Oregon to support research and teaching. He has appeared on the Philanthropy 50 eight times.
California Academy of Sciences
Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock donated $9 million to expand a program that provides free field trips to elementary-school children in the San Francisco area.
The couple gave $11 million in 2008 to endow the program for fourth- and fifth-graders, and their latest donation will help reach children from kindergarten through fifth grade. Once the program is in place at all San Francisco schools, by 2022, it is expected to serve 28,000 children a year.
Arthur Rock co-founded the San Francisco venture capital firm Davis and Rock, and was an early investor in Intel, Apple Computer, Scientific Data Systems, and Teledyne. Toni Rembe Rock is a lawyer.
University of California at Los Angeles
The physicist Mani Bhaumik gave $2 million to the Division of Physical Sciences. Half of the gift will help establish the Mani L. Bhaumik Graduate Fellowship in Theoretical Physics; the other $1 million will be used for a collaborative-study space for students in the physical sciences.
Bhaumik, who came to the United States from India in 1959, played a key role in developing the laser technology that paved the way for Lasik eye surgery. He spoke with The Chronicle in 2016 about his life, and his support for education and physics programs.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
