$90-Million Promised to Symphony; Other Gifts

Four institutions have received big gifts:

• The New World Symphony, in Miami Beach, has received a pledge of $90-million from an anonymous donor for its capital campaign to build a new campus. The new facilities will include a 700-seat music hall, practice space, offices, and new equipment.
• San Jose State University, in California, has received a pledge of $15-million from Charles W. Davidson, president of a civil-engineering company in San Jose that bears his name. The donor earmarked the gift for faculty and student development, energy research, and a program for new students at the university’s College of Engineering. Mr. Davidson graduated from San Jose State in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.
• Saint Louis University has received $12-million from Richard A. Chaifetz, founder and chairman of ComPsych, a Chicago company that provides products and services to employers to help their employees with personal matters. The gift will help build a new multipurpose arena, including basketball and volleyball courts, athletic-practice facilities, and offices. Mr. Chaifetz graduated from the university in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
• Orbis International, in New York, has received a pledge of $10-million from Al Ueltschi, chairman of FlightSafety International, an aviation-training company in New York, to develop new projects in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam, and to expand programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Ueltschi is the chairman of Orbis’s Board of Directors.

Other recent gifts:

Ball State U., Museum of Art (Muncie, Ind.): a painting by Lee Krasner valued at $2-million from David T. Owsley, a museum curator who has worked at the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, in Pittsburgh, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Mr. Owsley is the grandson of one of the university’s founders, Frank C. Ball.

Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta: $3-million unrestricted bequest from Sara Horne Smith, who died in 2002. Of the gift, $200,000 will endow a scholarship for Moving in the Spirit, a local arts organization.

Cottage Health System (Santa Barbara, Calif.): $2.5-million pledge from Steve Haselton, co-founder and co-owner of RE/MAX of California & Hawaii, in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., and his wife, Toni, and a $1-million pledge from Chad Dreier, chairman of the Ryland Group, a home-building and mortgage-lending company in Calabasas, Calif., and his wife, Ginni, for its capital campaign to build a new hospital in Santa Barbara.

Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (New York): $5-million from Andy Rachleff, co-founder of Benchmark Capital, a venture-capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif., and his wife, Debra, to create an award program to encourage cancer-research innovation by supporting young researchers’ projects.

Enterprise Community Partners (Columbia, Md.): $5-million from Ron Terwilliger, chairman of Trammell Crow Residential, a real-estate company in Atlanta, to endow a fund for affordable housing, loans, and a fellowship program to encourage students to consider a career in affordable housing and community development.

Indiana U. at Bloomington: property valued at $2-million from Stanley W. Benecki, president of Benecki Fine Homes, a real-estate development company in Atlanta, to endow the Center for Real Estate Studies, a professorship, and scholarships for undergraduate students. To increase the size of the gift and provide a learning opportunity, students at the university’s Kelley School of Business will assess, market, and sell the five undeveloped, beachfront properties in Dog Island, Fla. Mr. Benecki graduated from the university in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in real estate.

Lakeland Health Foundation, Niles (Mich.): $1-million from Charles Huizenga, a retired executive at Kawneer, a manufacturing company now based in Norcross, Ga., to support the obstetrics unit at Lakeland Community Hospital, Niles. The gift will support renovations, the purchase of equipment, a program for needy mothers and their children, scholarships for students in obstetrics or pediatrics, community outreach, a lactation consultant for new mothers, and decorations and toys for young patients.

Lenoir-Rhyne College (Hickory, N.C.): $1-million bequest from Eleanor Busch Schnitzel, a former administrative engineer who lived in Newburgh, N.Y., to endow its library and enable the college to join the Appalachian College Association. Ms. Schnitzel graduated from Lenoir-Rhyne in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She died in 2005 at the age of 86.

McDaniel College (Westminster, Md.): $1.25-million bequest from John Desmond Kopp, a retired analytical and metallurgical chemist at Scovill, a manufacturing company in Waterbury, Conn., to endow a professorship in the sciences. Mr. Kopp died in 1992 at the age of 91.

Miami U. (Ohio): $1-million from Jack R. Anderson, founder of the Calver Corporation, a health-care consulting and investment company in Addison, Tex., and his wife, Rose-Marie, to support salaries for junior faculty members. Mr. Anderson graduated in 1947 with a bachelor’s degree in business.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute (Buffalo, N.Y.): $1-million pledge from Jeremy Jacobs and his family to endow a professorship in immunology. Mr. Jacobs is the owner of the Boston Bruins professional hockey team and chairman of Delaware North Companies, a hospitality company in Buffalo. The family donated the money in honor of Mr. Jacobs’s brother, Lawrence, an immunologist who died in 2001.

Savannah Country Day School (Ga.): $3-million from an anonymous donor to help build a new environmentally friendly building for its Lower School.

Settlement Music School of Philadelphia: $1-million from an anonymous donor to support its Trowbridge Chamber Orchestra program and conductor. This program provides pre-professional training for high-school students.

Spring Harbor Hospital (Westbrook, Me.): $1-million from Albert B. Glickman, founder and proprietor of Albert B. Glickman and Associates, a real-estate development firm in Los Angeles, and his wife, Judith, a photographer, to endow a professorship at the Center for Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and for an annual youth-psychiatry symposium.

U. of California at Irvine: $1.8-million bequest from the estate of Sylvia H. Robb, whose late husband was a physician in California, to endow a discretionary fund at the School of Medicine and to support the university’s library. Ms. Robb died last year at the age of 97.

U. of Denver: $5-million pledge from Michael J. Ruffatto, founder of the North American Power Group, an energy company in Greenwood Village, Colo., and his wife, Joan, for its College of Education’s capital campaign to construct a new building. The new facility will also house the university’s Learning Effectiveness Program for students with learning disabilities; the couple’s daughter, Kathie, has lupus, but entered the learning program and graduated from the university in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in biology.

U. of Iowa (Iowa City): $4-million from Marvin A. Pomerantz, founder and chief executive officer of the Mid-America Group, a real-estate investment and development company in West Des Moines, to endow a professorship in cardiovascular medicine at the College of Medicine and a professorship at the College of Public Health, and to help build a new facility for the College of Public Health. Mr. Pomerantz graduated from the university in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in business.

U. of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (Newark): $1-million from Tim Reynolds, co-founder of Jane Street Capital, an investment-trading firm in New York, and his family, to support research on spinal-cord injuries. Mr. Reynolds was paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident six years ago.

U. of North Carolina at Greensboro: $3.9-million from Robert McDowell, vice president for information-worker business value at Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash., to establish a research center for global information-technology management, and to support the Weatherspoon Art Museum and faculty and student development.

U. of Washington Business School (Seattle): $2-million from Leonard Lavin, founder of the Alberto-Culver Company, a beauty- and household-product supplier in Melrose Park, Ill., and his wife, Bernice, to establish a new entrepreneurship program. Mr. Lavin studied at the university before entering the Navy during World War II.

Virginia Wesleyan College (Norfolk): $1-million from S. Frank Blocker Jr., owner and president of Eastern Auto Distributors, in Norfolk, to renovate a building that houses humanities and science programs, endow scholarships, and support annual giving and its capital campaign.

To submit announcements of donations from individuals of $1-million or more, please send an e-mail message to gifts@philanthropy.com.

–Compiled by Anne W. Howard