A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
RISE
The real-estate mogul Stephen Ross pledged $13 million over four years to expand the nonprofit’s efforts to fight systemic racism by working with community groups, college and professional athletes, and coaches and staff from sports teams and leagues across the country.
Ross founded the Related Companies, a New York real-estate development firm, and he owns the Miami Dolphins professional football team. He established RISE in 2015 after he talked with Draymond Green, a professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, about the origins of racism.
Including his latest pledge, Ross has donated a total of $30 million to the nonprofit. He has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 ranking of the biggest donors three times. since 2004.
Calvin University
Rimmer and Ruth de Vries left $11 million to pay for programs aimed at giving faculty time off from teaching to take courses to advance their understanding of Reformed Christian thinking, provide time for faculty to develop new curriculum, and offer opportunities for faculty members to receive mentoring from experienced faculty peers.
Rimmer de Vries, who died earlier this year, served as chief economist at the financial firm J.P. Morgan, and with his wife, Ruth, ran a 34-acre horse farm in Oldwick, N.J. Ruth de Vries died in 2018.
The couple were longtime donors to the university and donated over the years to create Calvin’s Global Faculty Development Institute and endow the university’s annual Kuyper Conference and the Kuyper Prize, both named after 19th-century Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper.
Navy SEAL Foundation
The billionaire Ken Griffin gave $10 million to expand the charity’s programs for U.S. Navy SEALs and their families, including children’s resiliency programs and the group’s scholarship program for SEALs who want to pursue a college degree.
Griffin founded the Chicago hedge-fund firm Citadel and appeared on the Philanthropy 50 in 2014 when he gave $150 million to Harvard for financial aid.
University of Arkansas System
Ed and Michelle Fryar donated $10 million through their Fryar Family Charitable Foundation to create and endow the Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence, establish a professorship in applied price-risk management, and back research and teaching programs. The new center will focus its research and teaching on issues surrounding price-risk management in agriculture, finance, and energy.
Ed Fryar co-founded Ozark Mountain Poultry, a Rogers, Ark., company that specializes in raising chickens without antibiotics or animal byproducts. He sold the company in 2018. Fryer was formerly a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas for 13 years and is an alumnus.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the UA and a master’s degree in agricultural economics. Michelle Fryar is also alumnus and earned a bachelor’s in psychology and a master of science in rural sociology.
Sterling College
Carl and Bonnie Dudrey left $7.9 million , primarily to endow scholarships, with $1 million of the bequest directed to construction projects. College officials plan to name a new science center for the donors.
Carl Dudrey was a farmer and rancher who owned the Dudrey Cattle Company, in St. John Kansas. He died in 2018 and Bonnie Dudrey died in 2014.
Colby College
Anne Clarke Wolff and Benjamin (Ted) Wolff III gave $1 million to create the Margaret T. McFadden Fund for Humanistic Inquiry, named for Colby’s provost.
Anne Clarke Wolff leads global corporate banking and global leasing at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. She graduated from Colby in 1987 and serves on the college’s Board of Trustees. Ted Wolff is a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a law firm in New York. He graduated from Colby in 1986.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
