A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Taylor Family Farms Foundation
Glen Taylor gave farmland in Minnesota and Iowa valued at approximately $172 million to launch this foundation. Taylor plans to direct the income generated by the farms on those parcels of land to three community foundations: Mankato Area Foundation, Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, and Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation over the coming years. The three foundations will then use the money to support programs that aim to help people in those locales.
Taylor founded the Taylor Corporation, a commercial printing and communications company with headquarters in North Mankato, Minn., and he is the majority owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx professional basketball teams. He grew up on a small farm in southern Minnesota during what he has described as “very lean times” and never forgot his family’s struggles. Taylor said in a news release that he hopes his gift will make “a lasting, positive impact” on others.
Greater New Orleans Foundation
Roger Ogden pledged to give real-estate holdings — 12 shopping centers located across Louisiana and Mississippi and valued at approximately $20 million — to establish and endow the Ogden Fund, which will provide annual support to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The foundation will receive the real estate upon Ogden’s death.
A lawyer by training, Ogden co-founded Stirling Properties, a commercial real-estate development company in Covington, La. Ogden donated more than 600 works, then valued at about $25 million, from his personal art collection to launch the New Orleans museum in 2003. He made his latest pledge to commemorate the museum’s 20th anniversary.
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Jeffrey Fort pledged $15 million to support research programs and the development of new treatments for diseases that cause vision loss. Specifically, the money will back efforts in the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences to better understand how inflammation and neurodegeneration can cause eye diseases.
Fort founded Jeffrey T. Fort Investigations, which specializes in forensic work, witness interviews, and expert-witness support, and co-founded Motive Creative, a digital production facility in Hollywood that specializes in theatrical trailers and media campaigns. He worked as a photojournalist for 15 years in Miami and St. Louis earlier in his career.
Treated for eye conditions by doctors at the medical school, Fort is a longtime donor to research efforts there. In 2015 he gave $1 million to establish the Jeffrey T. Fort Innovation Fund within the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, and gave another $1 million to support that effort in 2020.
Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center
Cathleen and James Stone gave $12 million through their James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation to back a range of climate-change education programs, support the renovation of the group’s existing facilities, and pay for new construction projects.
The nonprofit provides Boston Public Schools students with opportunities to build academic, life, and career skills through its programs in natural resource management, environmental conservation, scientific research, and carpentry.
Cathleen Stone is a former partner of the Boston law firm Foley, Hoag & Eliot where she practiced environmental and administrative law. She served as Boston’s first chief of environmental services in the 1990s and in that role, she helped to establish the Sustainable Boston program.
James Stone founded and leads the Plymouth Rock group of insurance companies, and from 1975 to 1979 he served as the insurance commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and then as chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Ehlers-Danlos Society
Mike and Sofia Segal pledged $6.7 million through their Mike and Sofia Segal Family Foundation to advance research and clinical care for people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare disease in which a group of inherited disorders affect the body’s connective tissues.
The money will be used to speed up research so that patients can be diagnosed earlier. It will also go toward identifying new therapeutic practices to improve the quality of life for individuals affected by these complex disorders.
The Segals emigrated to the United States in 1978 from present-day Ukraine and became U.S. citizens later that year. Mike Segal started his career working for the former Soviet Union’s department of energy and later served as a consulting engineer to electric utilities, municipalities, and electric cooperatives throughout the United States. He helped to lead investments and power-generation projects for other power companies before founding LS Power in 1990. The New York company develops and manages power plants and invests in businesses that focus on energy transition, including electric-vehicle charging, microgrids, renewable fuels, and waste-to-energy platforms.
The couple launched their foundation in 2009 and focus most of their grant making on causes that are usually overlooked and underfunded, including rare-disease research programs.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.