Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Husband Give $1 Million for Medical Protective Gear; N.J. Charity Lands $10 Million to Help Small Businesses (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Skoll Foundation

Billionaire Jeff Skoll gave $100 million to his Skoll Foundation to back two priorities: finding solutions to the current challenges associated with Covid-19 testing and contact tracing, and getting respiratory devices and other medical equipment to countries that can’t afford to buy the equipment or lack the infrastructure to support it.

Skoll was the first full-time employee and president of eBay, which he helped lead from 1995 to 2001. He later founded Capricorn Investment Group and is founder and chairman of Participant Media, a socially conscious film and media-production company in Los Angeles.

New Jersey Community Capital

Frances Sykes pledged $10 million through her Pascale Sykes Foundation to back THRIVE South Jersey, a program that helps small businesses during times of crisis. Sykes’s gift will be used specifically to support small businesses and nonprofits affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Frances Sykes started the foundation in 1992 to help low-income families in New Jersey. It is named for her father, Henry Pascale, who owned Hampton Roads Executive Airport in Chesapeake, Va., and died in 1990; and her late husband, Donald Sykes, an educational consultant and who died last year.

University of Rhode Island College of Business

S. Kent Fannon and his wife, Diane Chace Fannon, committed $6 million to renovate and expand Ballentine Hall, the business school’s main building, and a student center. They also pledged $50,000 for the business school’s annual fund. The student center will be named for them.

The Fannons graduated from the university in 1974. Kent Fannon is a partner at the executive search firm Chartwell Partners. Diane Fannon recently retired as principal at the Richards Group, a brand-marketing and advertising agency in Dallas.

American Film Institute

Lawrence Herbert gave $3 million to establish the Lawrence Herbert Alumni Center on AFI’s Los Angeles campus and to create a digital portal, AFI Backlot, to improve and promote the center’s global connections to AFI alumni.

Herbert is a former chairman and CEO of the color company Pantone. He is best known in design circles for developing the Pantone Color Matching System, a global standard for how to communicate color that is used in graphic, fashion, and product design, as well as in printing, manufacturing, and other industries.

An emeritus trustee, he joined the AFI Board of Trustees in 1987 and served until 2017.

Comp-U-Dopt

Eric and Shanna Bass donated $1 million to help the nonprofit provide 5,000 low-income youths with free computers so they can continue their schooling while they are quarantined at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Eric Bass leads Velite Benchmark Capital Management, a hedge fund in Houston that focuses on the natural-gas industry.

Phoebe Putney Health System

Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, donated $1 million to the Phoebe Foundation’s Covid-19 Relief Fund. It will be used to provide personal protective equipment for Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s medical personnel caring for pandemic patients.

Loeffler is a U.S. senator for Georgia. She was the CEO of Bakkt, a division of Intercontinental Exchange, a commodity and financial-services company she joined in 2002 after working for several other financial firms.

Sprecher founded Intercontinental Exchange in 2000 and currently serves as its chairman and CEO. He also serves as chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, which is owned by his company.

Loeffler was recently criticized for selling $20 million in stock after attending a private U.S. Senate briefing on the coronavirus pandemic in January and then investing in companies that were benefiting from the pandemic. She later said she and Sprecher planned to divest themselves of the stock.

United Way Worldwide

Zygi and Audrey Wilf and their family gave $1 million to the charity’s Covid-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund, which supports the worldwide network of nearly 1,800 local United Ways and its 211 free hotline that connects people throughout the county to health and human-services assistance.

Zygi Wilf is a New Jersey real-estate developer who is one of the owners of the Minnesota Vikings professional football team.

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