February 10, 2014 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Amount donated in 2013: $150.4-million
Top beneficiary: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Other notable gift: the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Background: Mr. Munger is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, an insurance and investment company.
Although Mr. Munger left the University of Michigan before graduating, he became one of its most generous donors when he pledged $110-million last year for graduate student housing and fellowships.
The 90-year-old investor is directing $100-million of his gift to build a housing complex where graduate students from varying disciplines can live together and avoid the social isolation that so often accompanies graduate study. The remaining $10-million will go toward a graduate fellowship program designed to encourage study and interaction among graduate students in different fields.
He gave the gifts because he believes housing has a big affect on one’s education.
“It’s very uncommon that administrations are much interested in creating dormitories because if you’re an elite place and you’ve got 10 applicants for every spot, it’s perfectly natural to think, ‘Why the hell do we need to do any more for the students? They’re begging to get in,’” he says. “I don’t think you abuse your best customers merely because you can get by with it.”
This isn’t his first donation of this sort. In 2011 he gave $20-million to the university’s law school to renovate housing for law students.
He decided to donate the money now rather than give it as a bequest so he can see the results of his giving.
“I’m soon going to be departed from all of my money,” he said. “Why not give more of it away while I get the fun of giving it?”
Two other organizations benefited from Mr. Munger’s gifts in 2013. He donated $38.5-million to the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens for a new education and visitor center that is scheduled to open in 2015. His late wife, Nancy, was a Huntington trustee; not including this most recent gift, Mr. Munger has donated about $27-million to the organization over almost three decades.
In addition, he gave nearly $1.9-million to the Marlborough School, a private girls’ school in Los Angeles, for an athletics center. His wife was an alumna of the school, as were a daughter, two granddaughters, and a daughter-in-law.
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.
