$100-Million Gift Will Finance Effort to Fight AIDS and Other Diseases
A software entrepreneur and his wife last week pledged $100-million through their new family foundation to create an institute dedicated to the discovery of an AIDS vaccine. The institute will eventually focus on other efforts to prevent diseases that attack people’s immune systems. The money for…
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
Grant Making by Family Funds Has More Than Doubled, Report Finds
Grant making by American family foundations totaled $18.5-billion in 2007, a 13-percent increase from the previous year. Those foundations received nearly $24-billion in contributions in 2007, a 36-percent increase over the $18-billion that was added to their coffers in 2006, according to the…
By MARTY MICHAELS
Contributor
Gifts of Art and Cash Flow to Museum to Remember a Beloved Leader
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has received 47 gifts of artwork in honor of its late director, Anne d’Harnoncourt, who died in June. Among the works are pieces by Claes Oldenburg, Georges Seurat, and Frank Stella. The museum declined to provide the value of all the works donated. The influx of…
By Caroline Bermudez
Contributor
Foundations and the Economic Crisis: Bill Gates Outlines His Philosophy
Following are excerpts from a letter Bill Gates released to the public describing his assessment of where his philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stands. He also discussed the role of foundations, especially in the economic crisis: A key question for Melinda and me is, Where are…
As part of his growing role as a global philanthropic leader, the software mogul Bill Gates is encouraging governments, foundations, and the wealthy to give more in 2009 as the faltering economy hurts charitable causes and the world’s poor. In a letter to the public and in interviews with…
By Ian Wilhelm
Contributor
Kennedy Center Leaders Offer Advice to Arts Groups
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, has started a $500,000 program designed to help struggling arts groups by providing them with free consulting and emergency planning advice. As the economic crisis has unfolded, the endowments of arts groups have fallen sharply, and…
By Sue Hoye
Contributor
Emily Rauh Pulitzer has a feeling her late husband, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., would have approved of her decision to give 31 works of art from the couple’s private collection to the Harvard Art Museum last fall. After all, he had been an avid art collector and had made scores of such donations to his…
By Noelle Barton
Contributor
When David G. Booth enrolled at the University of Chicago’s business school in 1969, he thought he would be leaving the institution with a Ph.D. and a job offer as a professor.
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
Few Wealthy Philanthropists Make Big Gifts to Social Services Even as Needs Grow
While social-service groups have not typically been beneficiaries of big donations, fund raisers at those groups see an opportunity for cultivating huge gifts as hunger and unemployment rates surge. Nine gifts from individuals on The Chronicle‘s Philanthropy 50 annual ranking of America’s…
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
How The Chronicle’s Ranking of America’s Top Donors Was Compiled
The Chronicle‘s ninth annual Philanthropy 50, a list of the most-generous donors, is based on gifts and pledges of cash and stock to nonprofit institutions. As a springboard, The Chronicle used information it has published in the last year about donations of $1-million or more from individuals; it…
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
Richest donors gave $15.5-billion in 2008, but this year looks gloomyEven in a year in which the stock market swallowed up nearly $7-trillion in assets, America’s wealthiest donors promised greater amounts to charitable organizations than in 2007: $15.5-billion in 2008, compared with $7.3-billion…
By Maria Di Mento and Caroline Preston
California Funds Pledge Millions to Aid Minorities
Nine wealthy California foundations have promised to distribute at least $30-million during the next two to three years to aid needy members of minority groups. The new grant-making effort was put together in response to pressure from state lawmakers, who drafted legislation last year that would…
By Ian Wilhelm
Contributor
Gates Fund Will Increase Giving This Year Despite Losses, New CEO Says
Since Jeffrey S. Raikes joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation here as its new chief executive, he has been on a worldwide learning tour. He has visited a rice research center in China, an Indian charity that assists female sex workers, and Washington inner-city schools to form a better…
By Ian Wilhelm
Contributor
Wealthy Donate Record Sums Despite the Recession
Even as the economy slipped into recession, America’s wealthiest individuals were giving record sums to charity. At least 16 individuals announced gifts of $100-million or more last year, more people than have ever done so in the 12 years that The Chronicle has kept a tally of the biggest…
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
Princeton University will pay $50-million and almost as much in legal fees to foundations controlled by the heirs of a major donor to the institution, in a settlement that ends a closely watched lawsuit over how strictly colleges must adhere to a donor’s wishes. The bitter dispute centered on an…
By Ben Gose
Senior Editor
Biggest Gifts and Pledges Announced by Individuals in 2008
Amount Donor Purpose or beneficiary $4.5-billion (bequest) James LeVoy Sorenson, chairman of Sorenson Development To the Sorenson Legacy Foundation (Salt Lake City) $1-billion (pledge) Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, and his wife, Joan Ganz Cooney To the Peter G. Peterson…