April 21, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
It’s time to play guess the mystery donor!
Nine universities have received a collective $45-million in recent weeks from an anonymous philanthropist or philanthropists who stipulated that the recipients not investigate the source of the funds. Purdue University received the largest gift, $8-million, while the smallest contribution, $1.5-million, went to the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
On The Wealth Report, a Wall Street Journal blog, Robert Frank, a senior writer at the newspaper, parses the clues to decipher the identify of this shadowy giver.
“The fact that the schools are mostly in the South suggests southern roots, so we likely can rule out most of the New York financial crowd and Silicon Valley chiefs,” he writes. “The fact that the identity is so closely guarded suggests a person or group that by nature avoids publicity, so we can cross out most of the Forbes list” of the super wealthy.
He rules out Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, arguing they usually want their giving to generate publicity that could spur other people to be charitable. He does suspect it could be the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who likes to give anonymously. Other suspects are the Walton family, Paul Allen, and Oprah Winfrey.
What do you think? Who could the mystery donor be? Click on the comment button below to leave a guess.
