The Philanthropy 50 2009 Gift Profile: David Eddings

David Eddings: $30-million

Biggest beneficiary: Reed College

Other key beneficiary: National Jewish Health

Donor’s background: Mr. Eddings was the author of fantasy novels.

Mr. Eddings, who was 77 when he died in June 2009, bequeathed approximately $20-million in cash and stock to Reed College, in Portland, Ore. Mr. Eddings stipulated that his money go toward financial aid for students and to support faculty salaries. The college plans to direct slightly more than 60 percent of the money to financial aid, and the remainder will endow a professorship in English, and support the cataloguing and maintenance of Mr. Eddings’ archives, which he also left to the college.

A 1954 graduate of Reed, Mr. Eddings had never given money to the institution during his lifetime, and was not particularly involved with the college, said Hugh E. Porter, a Reed official. “We spoke frequently on the phone, but David was very private about what he was planning,” said Mr. Porter of the bequest.

In addition to his gift to Reed, Mr. Eddings also left $10-million to National Jewish Health, in Denver, to support new approaches to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of childhood asthma. This gift was at the suggestion of Mr. Eddings’ wife, Leigh, who helped write many of his later novels; she suffered from asthma for most of her life and died in 2007.

The organization plans to use $7.5-million of the money to endow a treatment program for children suffering from the condition, said Ron Huddleston, the group’s assistant vice president for development.

Mr. Eddings was diagnosed with dementia about six months before he died. He and his wife had no children and the two charitable bequests made up the bulk of their estate.

The author of more than 25 works of fiction, Mr. Eddings, who composed all his novels in long hand, was best known for his Belgariad and Mallereon series of books. It was not until 1973, after publishing his first novel, High Hunt, a drama about a group of deer hunters, that Mr. Eddings first considered writing in the fantasy genre. After reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, he noticed that the novel was in its 73rd printing. Inspired by the realization that such novels could be lucrative, he devoted the rest of his career to writing fantasy fiction.

Mr. Eddings once said he hoped his novels would encourage young readers to eventually turn to the classics.

“Maybe that’s our purpose in life,” he once told Reed Magazine. “We’re here to teach a whole generation how to read, not everybody perhaps, but enough to possibly make a difference. And after they’re finished with us they can move on to somebody important like Homer or Milton.”

—Maria Di Mento

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