Oprah Gives $2 Million for Puerto Rico; and Conn. Billionaire Gives State $100 Million: Gifts Roundup

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

The State of Connecticut

Raymond and Barbara Dalio donated $100 million through their Dalio Philanthropies to form an organization that will work to improve schools and economic development in Connecticut communities with high poverty rates and high concentrations of youths struggling to complete high school.

The Dalios stipulated that state officials must raise another $100 million from other donors to receive all the money. The state is also kicking in $100 million for the effort.

Ray Dalio is a billionaire who founded Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund in Westport, Conn. The couple have given extensively to a variety of causes and to back education programs in Connecticut. They have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual list of the biggest givers three times since 2015

Stony Brook University

Marilyn Hawrys Simons gave $25 million through the Simons Foundation to establish the Center for Applied Economics and Public Policy and to back programs for minorities and women in economics, and other efforts within the center.

Simons earned a bachelor’s degree from the university in 1974 and a Ph.D. in economics there in 1984. She is married to Jim Simons, a mathematician and the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. The couple met when Jim Simons was chairman of Stony Brook’s math department.

Marilyn Simons founded the Stony Brook Women’s Leadership Council, a mentoring program that pairs female undergraduates with accomplished female alumni and friends of the University.

Indiana University School of Art, Architecture, and Design

Sidney and Lois Eskenazi donated $20 million to support student scholarships, faculty development efforts, and academic and research programs. The school will be named for them.

Sidney Eskenazi founded the national real-estate development company Sandor Development, in 1963. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the university. Lois Eskenazi also earned a bachelor’s degree from the university She worked as a medical and lab technician after college.

In 2011, the Eskenazis gave the university $40 million for a new hospital and medical campus in Indianapolis, now known as the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Eskenazi Health.

Longwood University

Joan Brock gave $15 million to build a new university events center The facility, now in its early design stages, is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2022.

Joan Brock graduated from the university in 1964 and managed the payroll department of the Dollar Tree chain of discount stores for many years. She is the widow of Macon Foscue Brock Jr., the founder of Dollar Tree, who died in 2017.

Harlem School of the Arts

Herb Alpert and his wife, Lani Hall Alpert, donated $9.5 million through their Herb Alpert Foundation, to renovate the school’s main building, which was named for Mr. Alpert in 2013. The Alperts have been supporters of the school’s rejuvenation since 2010 when they and other donors stepped in to reopen the then-struggling school.

Herb Alpert is a jazz musician and painter best known for his group, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. He also co-founded the recording label A&M Records, which he and business partner, Jerry Moss, sold to PolyGram. Lani Hall Alpert is a singer who rose to prominence in the 1960s as a lead vocalist for the band Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66 and later as a solo artist.

Purdue University Northwest

Nils Nelson left roughly $8 million to establish the Dr. Nils K. Nelson Memorial Scholarship and several named professorships in the College of Engineering and Sciences, and to back construction of the Bioscience Innovation Building, which has been named for the donor.

Nelson was an organic-chemistry professor who taught at the university for 29 years until retiring in 1991. Nelson joined the Hammond Campus faculty in 1962 after having taught at the University of Maine and University of Illinois. Before his life in academe, he worked as a research chemist at Shell Oil Company. He died in 2017 at age 90.

Morehouse College

Eugene McGowan Jr. left $4.6 million to establish the Eugene McGowan Jr. endowed scholarship.

McGowan was a prominent Delaware psychologist and former Atlanta Public Schools teacher. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse, the nation’s only historically black college for men, in 1937 and a Ph.D. in psychology in the 1940s. He died in 2017 at 100.

The Hispanic Federation and the Flamboyan Arts Fund

Oprah Winfrey pledged $2 million to be split between the two organizations. Her $1 million gift to the Hispanic Federation will back its UNIDOS Disaster Relief and Recovery Program to Support Puerto Rico and will help the nonprofit continue to develop and implement the island’s long-term disaster-recovery needs.

Winfrey’s $1 million to Flamboyan Arts Fund will support programs aimed at ensuring that the island’s arts and culture programs continue.

Winfrey is a billionaire media mogul and talk show host whose popular Oprah Winfrey Show was syndicated nationally and ran from 1986 to 2011. She is a serial philanthropist who has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors six times since 2003.

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