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Major-Gift Fundraising

Pom Wonderful Founders Lynda and Stewart Resnick Give $10 Million to Aspen Institute (Gifts Roundup)

Lynda and Stewart Resnick’s gift will create a new center dedicated to the work of the late Herbert Bayer, an architect who designed the institute’s Aspen Meadows campus. Daniel Bayer/The Aspen Institute

August 12, 2019 | Read Time: 3 minutes

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Plan International USA

An anonymous donor left $12 million to back a series of programs through the nonprofit’s GirlEngage effort, which is aimed at improving the lives of 10 million girls around the globe.

GirlEngage places girls, their priorities, and their needs at the forefront of designing solutions to their most pressing issues. The model combines the group’s expertise in program development with the input of girls who are directly affected by the organization’s programs.

The bequest will go toward new programs that will help protect girls, educate them, and provide them with economic opportunities.

Aspen Institute

Lynda and Stewart Resnick gave $10 million to create a new center on the Aspen Institute campus in Aspen, Colo., dedicated to the work of the late Herbert Bayer, an artist, industrial designer, and architect who designed the institute’s Aspen Meadows campus and many other buildings in the city.


Bayer was part of the Bauhaus movement, an early 20th-century German design school, in America. The new Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies enables the think tank to preserve and showcase Bayer’s art, expand its collection, borrow from major cultural institutions, and create new exhibitions that will educate the public about Bayer’s work.

Lynda and Stewart Resnick founded the Wonderful Company, which owns a variety of businesses including Wonderful Pistachios, Wonderful Halos, POM Wonderful, Fiji Water, Justin Wine, and Teleflora.

The Resnicks are prolific donors who have given extensively to education, culture, and health and wellness groups. They have appeared three times on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors over the last decade.

University of Saint Francis

Toni Murray donated $3 million to expand the Achatz Hall of Science. The new wing of the hall will be named the John & Toni Murray Research Center.

Toni Murray is a retired business owner. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the university in 1971 and a master’s in 1972. She worked as a schoolteacher for 39 years.


She and her late husband, John, owned Industrial Tool Grinding, in Waynedale, Ind., and she ran the business after he died in 2012.

University of Chicago

Suzanne Deal Booth gave $1 million to back art conservation courses and internships in the Department of Art History. The money will also support the department’s efforts to engage undergraduates in the sciences and recruit doctoral students with experience in investigating material implications in art history.

Deal Booth worked earlier in her career as an art conservationist under the tutelage of the renowned art collector, Dominique de Menil at the Menil Collection and restored 20th-century paintings at the Centre Pompidou as a Kress post-graduate fellow. She went on to work at les Monuments Historiques, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1998, she founded the Friends of Heritage Preservation, which helps preservation and conservation projects around the world.

She was formerly married to the billionaire David Booth, who co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors, a private investment firm. David Booth earned an MBA from the university in 1971 and gave it $300 million in 2008 for the business school, which was then named for him. He has also appeared on the Philanthropy 50.

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


Correction: Susan Deal Booth is no longer married to David Booth.

About the Author

Senior Editor

Maria directs the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual Philanthropy 50, a comprehensive report on America’s most generous donors. She writes about wealthy philanthropists, family and legacy foundations, next generation philanthropy, arts organizations, key trends and insights related to high-net-worth donors, and other topics.