UVA Nursing Gets $20 Million; Charles Barkley Gives $1 Million to Miles College (Gifts Roundup)

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

University of Virginia School of Nursing

William and Joanne Conway gave $20 million to help enroll more nursing students who transfer into the B.S. in nursing program; and practicing registered nurses with two-year degrees who would like to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

William Conway is a co-founder and co-chief executive officer of the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm in Washington. The couple have given extensively to nursing programs in recent years.

Including their latest donation, they’ve given a total of $35 million to the university’s nursing school, according to UVA. They have also given more than $17.2 million to the University of Maryland School of Nursing over the years, according to a Chronicle tally.

Kennesaw State University

John and Rosemary Brown donated $10 million to establish an endowment for the University’s Honors College. The money will be used to match gifts to the endowment from other donors.

John Brown is a retired chief executive and chairman of the Stryker Corporation, a medical-device company in Kalamazoo, Mich. Rosemary Brown retired after a 30-year career as a math teacher.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Winston Chen and his wife, Phyllis Huang, gave $5 million through their Paramitas Foundation to create the Chen-Huang Center for Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutant Lung Cancers.

Chen started his career in research and development at IBM in the early 1970s and in 1978 bought the electronics manufacturer Solectron. He served as president, chief executive, and eventually chairman of that company until retiring some years ago.

Eugene Family YMCA

Bill and Michelle Service donated $4 million to help to pay for the construction costs of a new building.

Bill Service is a restaurateur in Eugene, Ore., and serves on the nonprofit’s Board of Directors. The couple have a long history with the YMCA, going back to childhood. Bill Service attended after-school and summer-camp programs at the Eugene Family YMCA as a child, and in high school he attended Y retreats to Mexico, Yosemite, and Montreal for the 1976 Olympics and worked at the Y’s Welcome Center.

Michelle Service’s first job as a teenager was as a water-aerobics and swim-lesson instructor at her local YMCA in California.

Hope for Haiti

Bob and Renee Parsons gave nearly $3.1 million for the organization’s health care program for families in southern Haiti.

Bob Parsons is a billionaire who founded the GoDaddy group of companies. The couple are longtime donors to nonprofits in Arizona and elsewhere, and they have pledged more than $10 million to Hope for Haiti since 2010 in support of disaster relief, education, health care, and community-development programs.

They appeared on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2018.

Miles College

Basketball great Charles Barkley gave $1 million to kick off the college’s $100 million capital campaign.

Barkley is a retired professional basketball player who currently serves as an analyst on Inside the NBA, a sports show on the TNT television network. In a 16-year career, he played for the Houston Rockets, the Phoenix Suns, and the Philadelphia 76ers.

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

Maria Di Mento directs the annual Philanthropy 50, a comprehensive report on America’s top donors. She covers wealthy philanthropists, arts organizations, and key trends, among other topics. She recently wrote about Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropy and the overall top 10 gifts of 2019. Email Maria or follow her on Twitter.