A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Mayo Clinic
Jay Alix gave $15 million to endow research in the areas of artificial intelligence, digital technologies, data science, and other emerging fields.
Alix founded AlixPartners, a consulting firm that specializes in the restructuring of troubled corporations. He sold the company in 2006 to Hellman & Friedman for an undisclosed amount.
In 2018, he donated $200 million to Mayo to endow the Alix School of Medicine, back scholarships for medical students there, and support a professorship. The school was named for him at that time. He landed on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors that year.
University Hospitals
Alexander (Sandy) and Sarah (Sally) Cutler donated $15 million to establish the Cutler Center for Men’s Comprehensive Care, a collection of medical centers aimed at improving the way men seek medical care and address their health-care needs.
The new Cutler Center will start out with two locations, one at UH Ahuja Medical Center, in Beachwood, Ohio, and another at the UH Otis Moss Health Center, in Cleveland. Other locations will follow.
Alexander Cutler retired as chairman and CEO of Eaton Corporation, an international electrical-systems management company, in 2016. Late last month, the couple gave $8 million to Albion College, Sarah Cutler’s alma mater.
Cincinnati Ballet
Margaret and Michael Valentine pledged $10 million for the ballet company’s new building, which will be named for the Valentines and will house studio and rehearsal space, administrative offices, and a physical therapy and sports-rehabilitation center. The new building will also house the company’s affiliated training school, the Cincinnati Ballet Academy.
The Valentines founded Valentine Research, a company that designs, manufactures, and markets consumer electronics. In the 1970s, Michael Valentine helped to design the first radar detector to use superheterodyne technology, a type of wireless technology.
Human Services Campus
Ernest Garcia II and his wife, Joanne, pledged $10 million through their Garcia Family Foundation to support the Watts College Nexus, a new program aimed at helping the organization (which manages a campus housing 15 nonprofits) coordinate its work providing services to people experiencing homelessness.
Ernie Garcia II is a former real-estate developer who owns DriveTime Automotive, a large used-car retailer, and is part owner of Carvana, an online platform for selling used cars and making auto loans that was founded by his son, Ernest Garcia III.
His net worth was recently pegged at $5.5 billion by Forbes. Ernest Garcia II pleaded guilty in 1990 to a bank-fraud charge related to his dealings with Lincoln Savings & Loan.
National Park Foundation
David Rubenstein donated $10 million to build a new museum connected to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington. The museum will house interactive exhibits so visitors to the memorial can learn more about Jefferson’s life.
Rubenstein is a co-founder and co-executive chairman of the Carlyle Group, a Washington private-equity firm. He is a long-time philanthropist who has given extensively to historical organizations and monuments in Washington, higher education, and arts and culture groups. He has appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list six times since 2010.
University of California at Los Angeles
Steve Tisch pledged $10 million to establish and endow the Tisch Fund, scholarships for undergraduate students from middle-income families.
Of the total, $5 million will be distributed over the next five years to provide four-year scholarships beginning with students entering UCLA in the fall of 2020. The remaining $5 million will endow the scholarships.
Tisch is a film and television producer who co-owns and serves as chairman of the New York Giants professional football team. His father, the late Bob Tisch, co-owned the Loews Corporation, a hotel, insurance, and oil-drilling conglomerate.
Rochester Institute of Technology
Philip Saunders gave $7.5 million to renovate and expand Max Lowenthal Hall, home of Saunders College of Business, which was named for the donor about 10 years ago.
Saunders founded a number of Rochester-area businesses including Genesee Regional Bank, TravelCenters of America, Griffith Energy, the Sugar Creek Corporation, and Saunders Management Company.
In 2006, Saunders donated $13 million for the business school, and in 2010, he gave an additional $5 million.
University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point
Dorothea Harju left $4.3 million to establish the Harju Center for Equity in Education, which will support rural education and prepare elementary-education teachers.
Harju taught in various Wisconsin schools and served as a reading specialist in the Port Edwards School District for 25 years, retiring in 1977. She worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier in her career.
A UW Stevens Point alumnus, she earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1943 and a master’s degree in 1966. She died in 2017 at 98.
Spelman College
Jon Stryker pledged $2 million to create and endow a professorship in Queer Studies that will be named for the poet and civil-rights activist Audre Lorde.
Stryker, an heir to a medical-products company fortune, is an architect and longtime philanthropist who founded the Arcus Foundation.
He stipulated that the college must raise an additional $2 million from other donors to receive the money. He has appeared on the Philanthropy 50 eight times since 2006.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
