Eli and Edythe Broad Give $30 Million for Stem-Cell Research (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Rutgers University

Marlene Brandt pledged $30 million to establish the Rutgers Initiative for Youth Behavioral Health and Well-Being, which will provide mental-health care and support to young people, including youths in underserved and underrepresented communities, who have behavioral-health disorders. The gift will also support research.

Brandt graduated from Rutgers in 1980 and serves on its Board of Overseers. She is the former wife of David Tepper, a billionaire who founded Appaloosa Management, a hedge fund in Miami.

University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at San Francisco, and the University of Southern California

Eli and Edythe Broad gave a total of $30 million, at $10 million apiece, through their Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to the three universities to back research; and faculty recruitment, training, and retention at the Broad Foundation’s namesake stem cell research centers at each institution.

Eli Broad is a billionaire who founded KB Home and SunAmerica, a homebuilder and a financial services company, respectively. The couple primarily support K-12 education, scientific and medical research, and the visual and performing arts, and they have given significant sums to charity over the years. They’ve appeared on the Chronicle’s annual list of biggest donors 14 times since 2000 and conduct most of their giving through their Broad Foundations.

University of Tennessee at Martin

Bill and Rosann Nunnelly committed $22 million for scholarships for students from rural counties in Tennessee, especially those from Hickman County, where Bill Nunnelly was raised on a cattle and feed-grain farm.

Qualified students from Dickson, Giles, Lawrence, Lewis, Maury, and Humphreys Counties will also be eligible to receive future scholarships.

Bill Nunnelly, a retired entrepreneur, earned a bachelor of science in education in 1970 from UT Martin. He and a brother sold their family’s farm in 2010.

The New Museum

Toby Devan Lewis gave $20 million to help construct the museum’s second building, which is scheduled to open in 2022 and will be named for the donor.

Lewis, who serves on the museum’s Board of Trustees, is an art collector who once headed the public relations department of the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, now the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art. She served as the curator of the Progressive Insurance Company’s massive contemporary art collection for 20 years and was responsible for acquiring the collection’s more than 6,300 works.

Lewis was formerly married to the late Peter Lewis, who lead Progressive Insurance Company, which was founded by his father, Joseph Lewis. Peter Lewis died in 2013.

Bruce Museum

William Richter gave $15 million to help pay for the construction of the museum’s new art wing. Richter co-founded Cerberus Capital Management, a private-equity firm in New York.

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Alice Dodge Wallace donated $10 million through her Avenir Foundation to establish the Adams, Peckham, Dann, and Graffagnino Endowment Fund, which will support the William L. Clements Library and name the directorship of the library the Randolph G. Adams Director. Adams was the research library’s first director.

Wallace is the daughter of the late Homer Dodge, a physicist who was president of Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., and a former head of the physics department at the University of Oklahoma. He was an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway and left a significant portion of that stock to Wallace and her brother, Norton, when he died in 1983.

College of Staten Island

Jay and Lucille Chazanoff gave $7.5 million to support a variety of programs within the School of Business, which will be named for the couple. The Chazanoffs met while attending classes at Staten Island Community College, a predecessor of the College of Staten Island, and started their careers as accountants.

Lucille Chazanoff went on to become a vice president and controller of NBC and later served as chief operating officer in her family’s business, Royal Press, until she retired in 2012.

Jay Chazanoff is a partner in Pembroke Companies, a real estate firm. He joined Integrated Resources, a financial-services company, in 1973, eventually becoming its president and chief operating officer. He led the firm through a tumultuous restructuring after it filed for bankruptcy in 1990.

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