A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Long Beach City College
MacKenzie Scott gave an unrestricted $30 million in response to the community college’s work in adjusting to the changing demographics of its student population, closing equity gaps, and its work in racial justice. College officials plan to direct the donation toward improving student academic success by addressing racial-equity gaps; furthering its efforts to promote a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus environment; and increasing support services for vulnerable students.
The donation is one of 286 gifts Scott announced last week in a giving spree totaling more than $2.7 billion, which she directed to a number of underfunded or historically overlooked nonprofits, including a group of eight-figure donations to two- and four-year colleges and universities that educate students from low-income or marginalized backgrounds.
Scott is an award-winning novelist who helped her former husband, Jeff Bezos, start the online retailing behemoth Amazon. With a net worth of nearly $60 billion (according to Forbes), Scott is one of the richest people in the world. She gave extensively to nonprofits in the last year and landed the No. 2 spot on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors.
Maine Medical Center
John and Leslie Malone donated $25 million in recognition of the medical center’s 150th anniversary and to launch its fundraising campaign, “the Next 150,” which is seeking to raise money to build modern and adaptable facilities, educate medical professionals, and develop improvements in patient care. Medical center officials plan to name a new building for the donors.
John Malone is chairman of the media and telecommunication’s giants Liberty Media Corporation and Liberty Global in Denver. He served as CEO of Tele-Communications, a cable company known as TCI, from 1973 to 1996.
A billionaire whose net worth is estimated at $7.8 billion, according to Forbes, Malone is one of the largest private landowners in the United States. He and his spouse are summer residents of Boothbay, Me., and have received care at the medical center.
University School
William and Susan Oberndorf gave $25 million to support scholarships at the private school for boys. William Oberndorf graduated from the school in 1971 and has served as a trustee there for more than three decades.
He co-founded the investment firm SPO Partners in 1969. He retired from the firm in 2012 and currently serves as chairman of Oberndorf Enterprises, his family’s holding company. Susan Oberndorf is chairman of the WNC Corporation, the family’s other holding company.
New York University Silver School of Social Work
Constance McCatherin Silver and her husband, Martin Silver, donated $16 million to back the use of data science and artificial intelligence in social-work research and education. The money will be used to establish the Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity, establish the A.I. Hub at the university’s McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research, and create the Constance and Martin Silver Endowed Professorship in Data Science and Prevention.
Constance Silver is a psychoanalyst, social worker, and mixed-media artist. She has been a lecturer at NYU for many years and has served on the NYU Board of Trustees since 2003. She earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in social work from the university in 1978 and 1979, respectively.
Martin Silver founded Life Resources/DCI Biologicals, a plasma-collection company, in 1973 and sold the business to the United Kingdom’s Department of Health in 2002 (the first time that the British government had purchased a private company outside of the U.K.). He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from NYU Stern School of Business.
The couple pledged $50 million in 2007 to the School of Social Work to support scholarships for underserved students, endow a professorship in poverty research, and seed money to create the McSilver Institute in an effort to incorporate the expertise of social workers into research on poverty. The school was named for the Silvers that year.
Salesianum School
Miguel and Jacklyn Bezos pledged $12 million, of which $10 million will be used to establish and endow the Rev. James P. Byrne, O.S.F.S., Memorial Scholarship, which will provide full-tuition scholarships to 24 low-income students, who will also receive financial aid for the incidental expenses that often form barriers for underserved students, including books, retreats, service trips, and other expenses.
Preference for the scholarships will be given to students from Wilmington and the children of immigrants. The couple also plan to match pledges of $100,000 or more to the endowment over the next three years — up to $2 million — from other donors.
Miguel (Mike) Bezos is a retired engineer who worked for the global oil giant Exxon and is the stepfather of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon. Mike Bezos graduated from the private Catholic School, in Wilmington, Del., in 1963, one year after he emigrated to the United States from Cuba as one of the charges of Operation Pedro Pan, a joint U.S. government and Catholic Charities program that brought Cuban children to the United States between 1960 and 1962.
University of Connecticut School of Engineering
Betsy and Mark Vergnano gave $3 million to create and endow the Vergnano Institute for Inclusion, aimed at driving increased diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts within the engineering field by providing underrepresented students with access to scholarships, coaching and mentorship opportunities, and other career-development resources.
Betsy and Mark Vergnano are university alumni. Mark Vergnano is the CEO of the Chemours Company, a global chemistry company, with headquarters in Wilmington, Del.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
