A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of California at Los Angeles
Gary and Alya Michelson pledged $120 million through their Michelson Medical Research Foundation to help launch the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, a new medical research hub aimed at developing new treatments to prevent and cure diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease. Officials at the institute will also work on bringing those treatments to the marketplace.
Of the total, $100 million will be used to establish two research programs within the institute. One will focus on vaccine development and the other on microbiome research. The couple are directing the remaining $20 million to create an endowment that will support research grants for young scientists working on advancing immunotherapy research, human immunology, and the discovery of new vaccines.
Gary Michelson is a retired spinal surgeon and medical device inventor who holds hundreds of U.S. patents, primarily for spinal fusion and surgical instruments. In addition to supporting medical research, the billionaire couple are longtime donors to animal welfare efforts and education programs through their Michelson Philanthropies network of grant makers.
In 2014, Dr. Michelson gave the University of Southern California $50 million to establish the Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience. He also donated $15 million to the Found Animals Foundation, a charity he started nearly 20 years ago to reduce the number of pets euthanized in animal shelters, and appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of biggest donors that year.
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles
Jarl and Pamela Mohn pledged approximately $15 million, plus their extensive collection of paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media works by Los Angeles area artists to create the Mohn Art Collective: Hammer, LACMA, MOCA, or “MAC3" for short.
The $15 million will establish an acquisitions endowment to increase MAC3’s holdings of works by Los Angeles artists and will also cover expenses related to the ongoing care and storage of the collection.
Jarl Mohn is a venture capital investor who led National Public Radio from 2014 to 2019. Earlier in his career, he helped lead the MTV and VH1 cable television channels and founded the E! Entertainment Television cable network.
University Hospitals Cleveland
Iris Wolstein gave $15 million to help build the Iris S. and Bert L. Wolstein Center, an education and conference center, which will be located at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.
Wolstein is the widow of Bert Wolstein a Cleveland real estate developer who founded two large real estate companies: Heritage Development Company, which created golf courses, and Developers Diversified Realty Corporation, which developed shopping centers. He died in 2004.
In 2003, the Wolsteins gave $25 to University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University to build the Iris S. and Bert L. Wolstein Research Building, and the couple landed on the Philanthropy 50 list of biggest donors for their gifts that year.
Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs
MacKenzie Scott gave $10 million through her Yield Giving fund. The gift is unrestricted, and the nonprofit’s leaders said in a news release that they plan to use the money to implement the organization’s five-year plan to lend $300 million to 1,500 small businesses in Georgia and to provide more than 100,000 hours of business advisory services to small-business owners.
Scott is a novelist who helped create Amazon with her former husband, Jeff Bezos. Her net worth is estimated at $34 billion, and she has given more than $17.3 billion to more than 2,300 nonprofits in the last four years. Scott appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2020.
LifeBridge Health
Ellen Wasserman gave $10 million to establish an endowment to support scholarships for medical students at the Regional Medical Campus at Sinai Hospital, in Baltimore, and in partnership with the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences, in Washington.
The medical students in the program complete their first two years of medical classroom coursework at the George Washington School of Medicine and the Health Sciences campus in Washington before coming to Baltimore for their final two years of medical school.
Wasserman trained as a social worker and has been donating to the Sinai Hospital for 36 years. Most of her gifts have supported teaching clinicians and programs for vulnerable children in Baltimore. She is the widow of Jack Wasserman, who served as president of Brager-Gutman, a now shuttered department store in Baltimore in the 1960s and later led a real-estate management firm. He died in 2001.
Taylor University
Ken and Virginia Cornwall gave $10 million to establish the Cornwall School of Business and Leadership, which will be the new home of the university’s undergraduate business program and two recently launched graduate degrees, a one-year, residential Master of Arts in Leadership program, and a Ph.D. in Leadership offered online with concentrations in educational and organizational leadership. The gift will also support the development of a master’s degree in global leadership.
The school will also house the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which currently allows any Taylor student, regardless of major, to earn a minor or certificate in entrepreneurship.
Ken Cornwall founded ProSet/ProVent Systems, an Atlanta company that manufactures plumbing products for hotels, entertainment venues, sports stadiums, and the Department of Defense. This is not the Cornwalls’ first donation to the university. They gave $5 million last year to support the construction of Habecker Hall, the renovation of Stillman Fieldhouse, and the renovation of Nussbaum Science Center for nursing; and $3 million in 2022 for the construction of the Horne Academic Center.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
