A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Center for Technology and Civic Life and Center for Election Innovation and Research
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan pledged $300 million to the two nonprofits to shore up safe and reliable voting in the upcoming November elections. The money will be given through their Chan Zuckerberg Donor Advised Fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
The couple are giving $250 million of the total to the Center for Technology and Civic Life, which will provide grants to local election jurisdictions to back staffing, training, and equipment to ensure all voters can vote safely and reliably. They are directing the remaining $50 million to the Center for Election Innovation and Research to back state and local election officials working to ensure the security of elections.
The Facebook co-founder and his wife, a pediatrician, have given nearly $4 billion in recent years to their foundation and their donor-advised fund, through which they support three main areas: education, criminal justice, and science. They have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors six times since 2010.
University of Florida Warrington College of Business
Eugene Brigham pledged $20 million to back undergraduate programs in finance. University officials have named the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate Department for Brigham in recognition of the donation.
Brigham serves as Graduate Research Professor Emeritus at the university, where he began his career as a finance professor in 1971. He is the author of the best-selling finance textbook Financial Management: Theory and Practice, among others.
North Dakota State University
John Menard Jr. and his family gave $5.5 million to establish the Menard Family Distinguished Speakers Series in the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth and to pay for a directorship, several new professorships, visiting scholars programs, and graduate and undergraduate fellowships.
The new speaker series will be kicked off with an address by the former head of the American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks, who has studied philanthropy and is now professor of practice and public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Arthur C. Patterson faculty fellow at the Harvard Business School. Menard founded Menards, a Midwestern chain of home-improvement stores, headquartered in Eau Claire, Wis.
California Institute of the Arts
Eileen Harris Norton donated $5 million to create and endow the Charles Gaines Faculty Chair and to support programs for Black and underrepresented faculty in the School of Art.
Harris Norton is a Los Angeles art collector and former teacher. She is a co-founder of Art + Practice, a Los Angeles nonprofit that helps youths in the foster-care system and provides free access to museum-curated contemporary art.
The professorship’s namesake, Gaines, an acclaimed artist and faculty member at the institution, will be the first to hold the post, and preference for future appointments will be given to faculty members from underrepresented groups, including those who self-identify as Black.
Temple University and Thomas Jefferson University
Kenneth and Andréa Frazier gave $5 million to establish the Frazier Family Coalition for Stroke Education and Prevention, a new partnership program of the two universities that will bring stroke-prevention care to Philadelphia’s most underserved communities.
Kenneth Frazier is the chairman and CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Company. He is the first African American man to lead a major pharmaceutical company. Earlier in his career, he was a lawyer with Drinker Biddle & Reath, a law firm in Philadelphia.
Andréa Frazier founded Frazier Designs, an interior design firm. She previously served as a senior consultant for Cigna, where she developed and managed undergraduate and MBA recruitment programs. She has taught international law and politics as an adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s University.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
