Billionaires Marc and Lynne Benioff Give $35 Million for Microbiome Science (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

University of California at San Francisco and Stanford University

Marc and Lynne Benioff gave $25 million to create the UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine and $10 million to back the Stanford Microbiome Therapies Initiative.

Both centers are focused on the growing science of the human microbiome and house programs aimed at developing microbe-based diagnostics and therapies for a range of diseases.

Marc Benioff is a billionaire who founded Salesforce, a cloud-computing company, and Lynne Benioff is a former marketing consultant who co-founded Star Community Home, a short-term residential center for homeless families in San Francisco.

The Benioffs are serial donors who have given large sums to a variety of causes mostly focusing their giving on medical research and health care, charities that provide housing and services to the homeless, and education. They have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors six times since 2010.

Huntington Hospital

Terri and Jerry Kohl donated $7 million to support the expansion of the new Huntington Heart and Vascular Center.

The couple are longtime supporters of the medical center. Jerry Kohl and other Kohl family members have received heart-related care at Huntington Hospital.

The couple founded Brighton Collectibles, a women’s accessories manufacturer and retailer with headquarters in the Los Angeles area.

Miami University

Mike and Anne Gossett Armstrong gave $6 million to establish the Mike and Anne Armstrong Interactive Media Studies Scholars, which will be awarded to incoming first-year students majoring in interactive media studies with a preference to those with demonstrated financial need.

Mike Armstrong is a retired chairman and director emeritus of Comcast Corporation and the former chairman and CEO of AT&T and Hughes Electronics. The Armstrongs graduated from the university in 1961 and have previously given their alma mater $15 million for the Armstrong Student Center and $14.7 million for the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies.

Des Moines Public Schools

Jerry Torrence left nearly $1.3 million to back scholarships for North High School students with a cumulative high-school GPA of at least 3.0 and plans to attend one of Iowa’s three regent universities: the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, or the University of Northern Iowa.

Torrence, who died in 2015 at age 80, worked for 43 years for Regal Rugs, a carpet manufacturer, first as a sales representative in New York and later as head of sales for the company’s East Coast region.

He graduated from North High School in 1953 and earned a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Iowa in 1957.

University of California at Los Angeles Congo Basin Institute

Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker gave $1 million through their family foundation for work aimed at finding long-term solutions to food and water security, climate change, biodiversity loss, public health, and emerging diseases in Africa.

The money will pay for operating expenses and programs, and help support UCLA undergraduate and graduate students who are studying and conducting research in Africa.

Tony Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, is chairman and chief executive of Pritzker Private Capital, an investment firm that focuses on manufacturing and health-care companies.

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