A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of San Diego
San Diego philanthropist Darlene Marcos Shiley pledged $75 million to construct a new building to house STEM programs and establish the Shiley STEM Initiative, an effort to expand the university’s science, technology, engineering, and math programs.
The money will also be used to support scholarships for veterans and to back the university’s MFA degree in acting and its Shiley Graduate Theatre Program.
Shiley is a longtime donor to San Diego area nonprofits and has given the university a number of big gifts over the years, including $20 million in 2012 to establish the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering. She appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2013.
Her late husband, Donald Shiley, was one the inventors of the Bjork-Shiley heart valve, and the founder of Shiley Inc., which he sold to Pfizer in 1979. Donald Shiley died in 2010 at 90.
Enterprise Community Partners
MacKenzie Scott gave $65 million through her Yield Giving fund. The gift is unrestricted. Leaders of the affordable housing organization said in a news release that they plan to use the money to expand the group’s operations and programs over the next five years.
This is the second donation Scott has made to the organization. She gave Enterprise $50 million in 2020, when she started to contribute large sums to charity. Most of the nonprofits to which she has given over the past four years have received a one-time donation, but a growing group of charities have been surprised with second gifts.
Scott is a novelist and one of the richest women in the world. Her wealth, currently estimated at $28 billion, comes from her ownership of Amazon stock. She helped her former husband, Jeff Bezos, start the online retail giant in the 1990s, and she has devoted huge sums to charity since the couple divorced in 2019. To date, Scott has given more than $17.3 billion to more than 2,300 nonprofits.
Cleveland Clinic
The Haslam family gave $30 million to support cardiovascular genetics research and establish the Haslam Family Section for Cardiovascular Genetics, which will be housed at the Sydell and Arnold Miller Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute. The money will also back genetic testing for family members of Cleveland Clinic patients who have been diagnosed with an inherited heart condition, and establish an endowed chair in cardiovascular medicine.
The money was given by Natalie and James Haslam, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, Bill and Crissy Haslam, and Ann Haslam-Bailey and her husband, Steve Bailey. James and Natalie Haslam founded the Pilot Corporation, an oil company that also operates convenience stores.
Their son Bill served as governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019. Their son Jimmy currently leads Pilot, and his wife, Dee, is CEO of Haslam Sports Group, through which they own or operate several sports teams, including the Cleveland Browns, the Columbus Crew, and the Milwaukee Bucks. Their daughter Ann Haslam-Bailey leads the family’s Haslam Family Foundation. The Haslams appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors twice since 2014.
U.S. Soccer
The financier Michele Kang pledged $30 million to support women’s and girls’ soccer programs. The money will double the number of national team camps the nonprofit operates, expand how the organization identifies potential talent, and back professional development programs for women players, coaches, and referees. Kang plans to pay off her pledge over the next five years.
Kang founded and leads Cognosante, a medical-technology company, and Cognosante Ventures, a venture capital firm. She owns three professional women’s soccer teams: the Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, and London City Lionesses, and recently launched Kynisca Sports International to invest in expanding women’s soccer. She also is a part owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.
She made sports headlines in August when she gave $50 million to launch the Kynisca Innovation Hub, a nonprofit focused on advancing training methods for women athletes.
Kang attended Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea and then, encouraged by her father to pursue business, came to the United States, where she earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Chicago and a master’s degree at Yale School of Management. She started her career at the accounting giant Ernst & Young and then joined Northrop Grumman in 2000 as a senior executive.
Atlanta Opera
Atlanta billionaire Arthur Blank gave $27.5 million through his Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to renovate the Bobby Jones Clubhouse, a historic Atlanta building constructed in 1900, and turn it into a new headquarters for the opera company.
The new facility is scheduled for completion in 2027 and will include a recital hall, an additional theater venue, education spaces, rehearsal studios, and administrative offices. The new complex will be named the Molly Blank Center for Opera, for the donor’s late mother, a New York businesswoman who died in 2015 at age 99.
Blank is the chairman, owner, and CEO of the Atlanta Falcons football team. He co-founded Home Depot and retired from the home-improvement retailer in 2001. He has given huge sums to charity over the years and appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors four times over the past two decades.
Blue Star Families
Craig Newmark gave $25 million through his Craig Newmark Philanthropies to expand the nonprofit’s efforts to improve the lives of military families. The money will support efforts to launch 11 new chapters at U.S. military bases to help families who are struggling financially and to back programs aimed at alleviating military families’ isolation by connecting them to each other and to their nonmilitary neighbors.
He founded the classified-advertising website Craigslist, and has devoted huge sums to charity over the years. Newmark has focused much of his giving on election integrity, journalism ethics, security, and cybersecurity, as well as on helping veterans and their families. He recently gave $25 million to the Bob Woodruff Foundation to support its programs for veterans and their families and he has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors four times since 2018.
Penn State University
Mort and Sue Fuller pledged Overlook Farm, a 355-acre estate in Waverly, Pa., plus a monetary gift to the university for ecological research and educational programs. The land and cash are together valued at $23.3 million, according to the university.
Mort Fuller retired in 2017 as chairman of Genesee & Wyoming, a Darien Conn., holding company that owns railroads throughout North America and Europe. He was with the company for 40 years. Sue Fuller spent her career in marketing and communications.
Overlook has been in Fuller’s family for 125 years. His great grandfather, Edward Fuller, commissioned the iconic 19th-century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to develop a master plan for a weekend and summer retreat for the Fuller family. Olmstead and later his sons spent three decades developing the property, which today includes forests, wetlands and meadows, a lake that stretches across 39 acres, and an array of buildings.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
