January 11, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The oil investor T. Boone Pickens has given $135-million to establish his own philanthropic foundation.
Mr. Pickens, who founded an oil company in 1956 and an energy investment firm in 1996, has amassed a fortune that Forbes estimates at $1.5-billion. The 78-year-old oilman has announced his intentions to give away the bulk of his fortune in his lifetime.
Mr. Pickens may continue to make some gifts directly, but “the vast majority of his giving going forward will be through the T. Boone Pickens Foundation,” says Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Mr. Pickens. How much money will ultimately flow through the foundation, and how quickly, are “issues that will be addressed in 2007.”
Mr. Pickens gave nearly $230-million to charity in 2005 and was ranked No. 5 on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s most recent list of the donors who gave the most to charity. His largest gift was a $165-million commitment to Oklahoma State University, his alma mater.
The foundation’s giving will focus mainly on health and medical research, treatment, and services; aiding troubled children; entrepreneurship; education and athletics; corporate health and fitness; and conservation and wildlife management.
The foundation has made several gifts already, including $6-million to an eye-research institute at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and $5-million to Texas Woman’s University for a health-sciences center.
Mr. Pickens is the foundation’s chairman and an “active hands-on participant in all decisions,” says Mr. Rosser. Charities and causes in Oklahoma, where Mr. Pickens was born, and Texas, his longtime home, are likely to continue to receive a greater proportion of his giving than causes in other states.
Mr. Rosser says Mr. Pickens has not decided whether he will endow the foundation or just give donations each year to cover the organization’s spending. However, he says, “there is general agreement that the foundation would be sunsetted at some point following Mr. Pickens’s death.”
