$15-Million Fund Created at Harvard

Five women have helped to establish a $15-million fund at Harvard University to encourage other women to make substantial gifts.

Women who donate $25,000 or more to Harvard’s current $2.1-billion capital campaign will be eligible to have their gifts matched by the new fund. Each gift will be matched, dollar for dollar, to a maximum of $250,000.

The idea for the fund came from Rita E. Hauser, an international lawyer and co-chair of Harvard’s campaign, which is scheduled to end next year.

To help create the new fund, Mrs. Hauser gave $5-million. Another $5-million came from the university, while the remaining $5-million was given collectively by four other women: Lisa Cashin, Barbara Caspersen, Mary Gordon Roberts, and one woman who wished to be anonymous.

Mrs. Hauser said she had long been thinking of how to stimulate more women to make large contributions. Data from several Ivy League universities, she noted, suggest that even women with significant assets give their alma maters less generous donations than men do.

The new matching fund has already inspired a handful of gifts from women. The largest is a $1.5-million pledge to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government by Mary Lou Roy and her two daughters, Ellen and Jane.