Businessman Gives $25 Million to Endow New Institute for Data and Society (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

University of Notre Dame

The Indiana institution has received $25 million from Robert and Sara Lumpkins to establish the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, which will connect faculty, students, and research efforts involving data science and analytics programs.

Robert Lumpkins, a Notre Dame alumnus, retired last year as chairman of the Mosaic Company, a Plymouth, Minn., business that produces and markets crop and animal-nutrition products and services. The couple asked that the new institute be named “Lucy” in honor of a meaningful name in their family.

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Maxine and Stuart Frankel donated $20 million through their foundation for the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Innovation Initiative, which will back research at Michigan Medicine in collaboration with other institutions.

Stuart Frankel leads a real-estate development firm in Troy, Mich., that bears his name. The couple both graduated from the university and gave $10 million in 2004 to build an addition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

University of California at San Francisco

Jan Shrem and his wife, Maria Manetti Shrem, gave $18 million for a new neurology clinic at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay. The clinic will shorten the time it takes patients with ambiguous neurological symptoms of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or mental-health issues to receive a diagnosis by providing them with early screenings and consultations with a specialist during a single visit. The clinic is expected to open at the end of the year. The gift will also create three endowed professorships that will be used to recruit clinicians.

The couple formerly owned Clos Pegase Winery in Calistoga, Calif.

Seattle Colleges Foundation

Eva Gordon left $10 million to support students at 17 community and technical colleges in western Washington State.

Gordon, who died in June 2018 at age 105, graduated at the top of her high school class in Eugene, Ore., but never went to college. She worked as a legal secretary and then later at an investment firm in Seattle. She built her fortune in small stock-market investments over her lifetime.

Tipping Point Community

Grace and Steven Voorhis gave the San Francisco grant maker $10 million to support Better Futures for Foster Youth, a program that aims to improve public policy and programs that help youths who have aged out of foster care to secure stable housing, pursue an education, and gain access to support services in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Steve Voorhis is a vice president at Dodge & Cox, an investment bank in San Francisco.

Millersville University

Liselotte Wehrheim left $3.5 million to endow scholarships for nursing students who have unusual or special circumstances standing in the way of their education, such as having to support and care for a parent, child, or spouse.

Wehrheim died recently at age 103. She earned her nursing degree from the university in 1974 when she was 59. She began practicing nursing as a military nurse in Poland and Russia during World War II and continued into her 90s.

University of California at Los Angeles, Herb Alpert School of Music

Herb Alpert gave $3 million from his Herb Alpert Foundation to renovate the music school’s theater in its Schoenberg Music Building. Alpert is a trumpet player, jazz composer, and co-founder of A&M Records in Santa Monica, Calif. The theater was renamed Lani Hall, in honor of Alpert’s wife, the singer Lani Hall.

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

M.J. Prest has been writing about major gifts, grant making, and executive moves for the Chronicle since 2004. Email M.J.