A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of Virginia
Bruce and Martha Karsh gave $50 million to establish the Karsh Institute of Democracy, a center that will be dedicated to the study, teaching, and promotion of democracy. The gift will help to pay for construction costs for the new institute’s home, which is scheduled to open in 2026, although the work of the institution will begin soon.
Bruce Karsh is a former lawyer and the co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, where he serves as chief investment officer. Martha Karsh is an attorney who founded an architecture and design firm. The Karshes co-own the Golden State Warriors, a professional basketball team.
The couple met as students at the university’s School of Law. She earned an undergraduate degree from UVA in 1978 and a law degree in 1981. He earned a law degree there in 1980.
They give to a variety of causes and appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 report of the biggest donors in 2011, when they gave $50 million to Duke University for scholarships.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Doris Kelley Christopher donated $45 million to establish and build the Doris Kelley Christopher Illinois Extension Center on the grounds of the university’s arboretum. The center will serve as the central home of six university extension offices that are currently scattered across the campus.
Christopher founded Pampered Chef in 1980. The direct-marketing company offers cookware, kitchen tools, and related products. She sold the business to Berkshire Hathaway in 2002 for an undisclosed amount.
Christopher graduated from the university in 1967 with a degree in home economics and started out working for Illinois Extension, where she taught home economics to adults and 4-H youth in DuPage County, Ill.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Lisa Yang gave $24 million to back Cornell University’s Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, where it will be used to support training in the tools and technology of acoustics and help researchers share approaches to acoustic analysis of animals and marine life with other scientists and conservationists. Some of the money will also endow the directorship of the center.
Yang is a private investor and retired Wall Street banker who spent her career working for First Boston Corporation and Lehman Brothers. She earned a B.S. from Cornell University in 1974 and today focuses much of her time on advocating for individuals with disabilities and autism-spectrum disorders.
She and her husband, Hock Tan, are prolific donors. They founded the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University in 2015 and appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors last year.
American University
David and June Trone donated $5 million through their David and June Trone Family Foundation to establish an endowed professorship in neuroscience and behavior and to back research into the relationship between the brain, behavior, and disease.
The couple said in news release that they decided to give the gift because “the Covid-19 pandemic has accentuated the health threat of cognitive disorders such as addiction and the lack of effective, accessible treatments.”
David Trone currently serves as the U.S. representative for Maryland’s 6th congressional district. He co-founded, with his brother Robert, Total Wine & More, a Bethesda, Md., chain of liquor stores. He served as the company’s president until December 2016.
University of California at San Diego
Chiu-Shan Chen and Rufina Chen pledged $5 million to establish and endow the Center for Taiwan Studies, which will be part of the university’s Division of Arts and Humanities. The new center will offer programming aimed at expanding the cultural understanding of Taiwan and Taiwanese Americans.
Chiu-Shan Chen is a physicist who co-founded two San Diego companies — Pacific Biotech, in 1982, and Wyntek Diagnostics, in 1994. An immigrant from Taiwan, he came to the United States in 1962 to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Nevada, Reno, and earned a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from UC San Diego in 1969.
He became a U.S. citizen in 1977 and later helped to create the Taiwanese American Foundation of San Diego, serving as the nonprofit’s chair in 1997. He said in a news release that the positive experiences he had as an immigrant in the 1960s helped him to feel at home in Southern California and a simultaneous connection to his homeland through his associations with other Taiwanese Americans.
“If I give back now, I can somehow connect to my homeland. That’s really the greatest thing to do,” said Chen in the press release. “So many people have helped me in my life. So when I have the chance to give back, I will.”
University of California at Davis
Jeff and Kellie Hepper pledged $1 million to create and endow the Hepper Family Exhibition Fund, which will support exhibitions at the university’s Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.
Jeff Hepper is a retired oil-industry executive who graduated from UC Davis in 1979. The Heppers are art collectors and own works by UC Davis Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol, and Mary Heilmann.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
