Phil and Penny Knight Give Stanford $75 Million to Study the Causes of Cognitive Decline

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Stanford University

Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, gave $75 million to establish the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, an effort to learn what causes cognitive decline and degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and how to delay and treat such neuro-degeneration. The program will be housed at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

“As Phil and I get older, we are seeing the devastating impact of neurodegeneration on our friends and loved ones,” Penny Knight said in a news release. “We are calling it the ‘Initiative for Brain Resilience’ because we want to focus on the positive outcomes this important research may yield: healthy aging and the possibility of helping all people live fuller, more vibrant lives late into life.”

Phil Knight earned an MBA from Stanford in 1962, and the couple are longtime Stanford supporters. They gave the university $400 million in 2016 to launch the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, a graduate program that aims to prepare the next generation of global leaders. They also gave Stanford University Graduate School of Business $105 million in 2006 to build the Knight Management Center.

The Knights have also given huge sums to two other universities, the University of Oregon and Oregon Health & Science University, directing much of their support to scientific efforts at those two institutions. Phil Knight earned a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Oregon in 1959. The Knights have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors nine times since 2006.

Shepherd Center

Arthur Blank gave $50 million through his Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to pay for the construction of new family housing. Blank’s donation will double the size of the neurorehabilitation hospital’s housing and will enable more families and caregivers to be close by as their loved ones participate in rehabilitation for spinal-cord injuries, brain injuries, multiple sclerosis, and other neurological conditions.

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 previously given to the center’s SHARE Military Initiative, a program that provides treatment at no cost to veterans, service members, and first responders with traumatic brain injuries. SHARE clients and families also rely on the center’s family housing units during their treatment there.

Tampa Museum of Art

Richard and Cornelia Corbett gave $25 million to help pay for renovations to expand the museum’s exhibition, collections, and events spaces. The money will also help the museum to add an education center, a restaurant, and retail space.

Richard Corbett is president and CEO of Concorde Companies, a Tampa real-estate investment firm. He served as chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission for two years, where he helped develop the Florida Youth Conservation Centers Network, an effort in partnership with the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida to connect youths to outdoor activities.

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital

Brad and Megan Bonham gave $15 million to endow and the Utah Fetal Center and expand the center’s capabilities. The center will be renamed the Grant Scott Bonham Fetal Center after the couple’s infant son, who died one day after he was born due to complexities that could not be addressed in-utero at that time.

Brad Bonham co-founded and is CEO of Walker Edison, an online furniture and home-decor company in West Jordan, Utah. He is also an investor in Journeyfront, an online job-recruitment platform, and teaches business courses at Ensign College, a private university in Salt Lake City that is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Educational System.

University of Wisconsin at Platteville Foundation

Todd and Susan Johnson gave $10 million to create the Capstan Scholarship Program, which will provide scholarships covering full tuition, room, and board to students from the midwestern states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, or Michigan who plan to major in STEM fields or accounting and finance.

Todd Johnson is chairman and CEO of Capstan Corporation, a Duluth, Minn., holding company that owns construction, energy, and other businesses. He earned an engineering degree from the university in 1981.

Simmons University

Jennifer Eckert gave $5 million to establish the Jennifer Eckert Center for Leadership and Engagement and support the Jennifer Eckert Leadership Fellow program for graduate students. Her gift will also back the Simmons Bridge Program, which provides first-year Black, Indigenous, and other students who identify as people of color with opportunities to better connect with each other across the university and pay for programs that will enable undergraduate students to get more involved with community service, citizenship projects, and leadership development efforts.

Eckert worked in the fashion industry before returning to school and earning a master’s degree from Simmons’s School of Social Work in 2008. In 2012, she founded Boston Post Adoption Resources, a Brookline, Mass., nonprofit that provides education and other types of support for people whose lives have been touched by adoption and foster care in some way. The organization serves people of all ages.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.