February 10, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute
Amount donated in 2012: $43.1-million
Beneficiary: Oregon Community Foundation
Background: Mr. Brown was a lawyer who specialized in tax law.
Garthe Brown, who died in 2010 at age 95, and his Grace Brown, who died in 2008 at 85, left slightly more than $43.1-million to the Garthe and Grace L. Brown Fund II at the Oregon Community Foundation. The Browns established the fund to support, in perpetuity, 10 nonprofits: American Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapter, First Congregational United Church of Christ-Portland, Good Samaritan Foundation, Lewis & Clark Law School, National Jewish Health, Oregon Health & Science University Foundation, Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, Salvation Army Cascade Division, Shriners Hospital for Children—Portland, and Volunteers of America Oregon.
The Browns were involved with the community foundation for decades, setting up charitable funds for themselves and encouraging friends and business associates to do the same. Mr. Brown referred a number of his clients to the foundation, where many of them established donor-advised funds, and he was partly responsible for introducing his old friend, Fred Fields (No. 7 on the Philanthropy 50), to the foundation.
