No. 8: Irwin and Joan Jacobs

Amount donated in 2013: $221.1-million

Top beneficiary: The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute at Cornell NYC Tech

Other notable gifts: Joan and Irwin Jacobs Fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, Dunaway Foundation, San Diego Public Library Foundation

Background: Mr. Jacobs is a co-founder of Qualcomm, a wireless-communications company.

Irwin and Joan Jacobs give mostly in the San Diego area, but last year their largest donation, a pledge of about $133-million, was made to establish the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute at Cornell NYC Tech. The institute will house a dual-degree master’s program at Cornell Tech, a new science and engineering graduate school that Cornell University is building on Roosevelt Island, in New York. The graduate school aims to foster new business ventures between academe and industry.

A joint project of Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the Jacobs Institute will enable students to earn master’s degrees from both universities simultaneously. The degrees, in applied information-based sciences, will cover one of three areas: connective media, healthy living, or the built environment (the study of the design, construction, and managing things like parks, buildings, and other infrastructure, and their relationship to human activity).

The money will be used to endow the institute and pay for its operations and programs.

Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs, who are 80 and 81, respectively, both graduated from Cornell University in 1954. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in nutrition, and he earned one in electrical engineering. The couple has supported both Cornell and Technion over the years.

They also gave significantly to San Diego organizations: $50-million to the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, Through this donor-advised fund, they support local arts and culture, education, health, and human-service groups. They also gave $28-million to the Dunaway Foundation, which supports education and health causes, and pledged a matching gift of $10-million to the San Diego Public Library Foundation for a new building. The library must raise another $10-million to receive the whole gift. The couple gave a total of $20-million to the library in previous years.

The Jacobs also gave a total of $105,000 to other charities last year.

The Philanthropy 50: Browse the full list of America’s most generous donors in 2013.

Learn more: See this donor’s listing in our database of major gifts, America’s Top Donors.