Jackie and Mike Bezos Give Nearly $186 Million to Launch a Civic Engagement and Leadership Program for Young People

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Aspen Institute

Jacklyn and Miguel Bezos gave $185.7 million through their Bezos Family Foundation to create the Center for Rising Generations to promote civil dialogue and develop leadership skills and civic engagement among young people. Of the total, $175 million will endow the new center, and $10.7 million will be used to support the center’s operations.

Jacklyn Bezos is the mother of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon. She previously established the Bezos Scholars Program at the Aspen Institute, the Aspen Challenge, and Students Rebuild, all of which are education programs for various age groups.

Miguel Bezos, Jeff Bezos’s stepfather, spent 32 years working as an engineer and manager with the oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil before turning to devoting his time to the family’s philanthropy. He serves on the Aspen Institute’s Board of Trustees. The couple have given extensively to nonprofits in recent years and have appeared twice on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50, a list of the biggest donors of the year.

Scheduled to launch next year, the Center for Rising Generations will be led by Kaya Henderson, a former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools and the founder of Reconstruction, an education company that provides courses about African American history and culture.

The Colburn School

Richard and Robin Colburn gave $16.6 million through their Negaunee Foundation to endow the Conservatory of Music’s Negaunee Conducting Program, a conducting apprenticeship led by the celebrated composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who holds the Maestro Ernst H. Katz Chair of Conducting Studies at the Los Angeles school.

The conducting program, which was established in 2018 with a previous gift from the Colburns, provides a small group of students known as Salonen Fellows opportunities to hone their craft under Salonen’s guidance.

Salonen Fellows receive full scholarships to cover tuition, room, and board. They study directly with Salonen, collaborate with major orchestras throughout the world, serve as preparatory conductors for the Colburn Orchestra, and conduct and curate programs for the Zipper Outreach Orchestra, Colburn’s performing ensemble for its community-engagement activities.

Richard Colburn is a private investor and president of Henley Management Company, a holding company in Northbrook, Ill. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Consolidated Electrical Distributors, an Irving, Tex., equipment wholesaler owned by his family.

Cleveland Clinic

Lorie and Nicholas Howley gave $13 million through their Howley Foundation to expand the Howley ASPIRE Pathways program through 2036. The program assists students pursuing careers in respiratory therapy, surgical technology, and sterile processing.

Students enter the program as high-school juniors and learn about careers in those three areas. In their senior year, they concentrate on a field of interest and prepare for next steps in the program. After graduation, students have the opportunity to earn scholarships to complete a two-year degree at Cuyahoga Community College for surgical technology or Kent State University for respiratory therapy. Alternatively, they can receive on-the-job training and certification in sterile processing directly from Cleveland Clinic.

Nick Howley founded Transdigm Group, a Cleveland company that designs and manufactures engineered aerospace components and systems. Lorie Howley is a horticulturalist who for 15 years developed and taught postsecondary and continuing-education courses at Longwood Gardens, a botanical garden in Kennett Square, Pa.

Hastings College

Ed Ostermen left cash and real estate valued at more than $9 million — the bulk of his estate — to his alma mater primarily for the upkeep of the Hastings, Neb., college’s campus. About $5 million of the total will be used over the next five years on deferred maintenance projects, and roughly $4 million will support the Osterman Endowed Deferred Maintenance Fund within the Hastings College Endowment.

Born and raised on his family’s Central City, Neb., farm, Osterman earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1965. He then spent much of his career working on the family farm. After he retired from farming, he moved to Colorado and worked for the Colorado Department of Forestry. He later returned to Nebraska, where he spent the last three years of his life. He died late last year.

Indiana University School of Medicine

Dr. Diane Werth pledged $5 million to support the construction of a large, technologically advanced anatomy laboratory in the school’s new Medical Education and Research Building. Werth is a cardiologist who earned her medical degree from the university in 1978. It was there that she met her future husband, Allan S. Manalan, a 1976 IU medical school alumnus who also became a cardiologist. He died in 2020.

“What medicine teaches is that your education never stops,” Werth said in a news release about her gift. “If you want to be a good doctor for the rest of your life, you embrace that. It starts when you get to medical school. You rely on your colleagues, and that is one thing you learn early in the anatomy lab. It’s a group you work closely with and share a unique bond with forever.”

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