Table of Contents
A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Knight Foundation
Nike co-founder Phil Knight gave $900.7 million to his and wife Penelope’s foundation. The couple primarily support scientific and medical research at the University of Oregon, Oregon Health and Science University, and other large institutions. They have also given extensively to Stanford University, where Phil Knight earned an MBA in 1962.
University of Oregon
Phil Knight gave $300 million for ongoing support for many of the university’s programs to which he has donated in recent years. With this latest gift, he and his wife, Penelope, have donated at least $1.1 billion to the university since 2007, with much of it directed to scientific research and related programs.
Phil Knight earned a journalism degree from the university in 1959 and went on to co-found Nike, the sports-apparel company.
Kummer Institute Foundation
Fred and June Kummer gave $300 million to establish this foundation that will, in turn, support new programs at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. One of the primary programs is set up an independent research institute that will house research centers on infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, and environmental and resource sustainability.
Through the new foundation, the Kummers will also launch the Kummer School of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. The foundation will back a variety of other programs, including scholarships and fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students, expansion of the university’s online degree programs, new research faculty positions, new construction and renovation projects, and more.
In 1960, Fred Kummer founded the company that would become HBE Corporation, a St. Louis construction company that primarily builds and renovates hospitals. His early work included some buildings on the S&T campus, including the Gale Bullman Building and Curtis Laws Wilson Library. He attended the university in the early 1950s but left in 1952 to join the army. He returned and completed his degree in 1955. June Kummer is an architect.
The couple are long-time donors to the university. They gave the lead gift for the Kummer Student Design Center, which houses student-run design teams, and they gave money to expand the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Hall and Toomey Hall, which house the university’s mechanical and aerospace engineering programs.
Music Center
Jerry and Tina Moss gave $25 million to establish a free, annual summer concert to be held outdoors on the newly named Jerry Moss Plaza; and to create an arts partnership program with local organizations that will work to help artists, especially those who are Black, indigenous, or other types of people of color. The money will also shore up funds for the Los Angeles center’s other free and low-cost events.
Jerry Moss co-founded A&M Records with the musician and philanthropist Herb Alpert in 1962. The two men sold the record company to Polygram in 1989 and formed Almo Sounds, another record label, in 1994.
Tina Morse Moss is a psychotherapist who founded LifeDr.com, a health and wellness website. Earlier in her career, she led a treatment team in the Adult-Outpatient Psychiatry Department and the Early Childhood Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas
Warner and Debbie Lusardi donated $25 million to back a new acute-care hospital tower and pulmonary institute. Warner Lusardi co-founded Lusardi Construction Company with his father, Peter, in 1958. The couple are long-time donors to the hospital.
They gave a previous gift of $1.1 million to kick off the organization’s current fundraising campaign, and they have donated money over the years to upgrade the hospital’s operating rooms and to acquire diagnostic technology to detect respiratory issues and bladder cancer.
West Virginia University
Brad and Alys Smith donated $25 million to the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative to back a remote-worker program designed to help individuals and young families prosper in the face of challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and to pay for other outdoor programs.
Brad Smith led Silicon Valley software giant Intuit for 11 years as president and CEO and now serves as executive board chairman. He grew up in Kenova, W.Va. Alys Smith is an attorney who founded Better2Mediate, a mediation services firm in California’s Bay Area.
Miami University
Rick McVey gave $20 million to build a new data science building on its main Oxford, Ohio, campus. The building will be named for McVey.
McVey founded and leads MarketAxess, an financial technology company, in New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the university in 1981 and currently serves as a member of the Miami University Foundation Board of Directors, where he is chairman of the investment committee.
George Washington University
John Loeb Jr. pledged $12.5 million to support the Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom, which was established in 2016 when Loeb gave $2.5 million to start the institute.
Loeb served as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark from 1981 to 1983 and as a public delegate to the United Nations. Before serving in government, he was a partner of the New York investment banking and brokerage firm Loeb, Rhoades and Co. from 1957 to 1979.
The firm was founded in part by his late father and grandfather. His late mother was a granddaughter of Mayer Lehman, one of the three founders of the now-shuttered Lehman Brothers, a once giant investment firm that fell at the outset of the financial crisis of 2008.
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian
Sue Gross donated $5 million through her Sue J. Gross Foundation to expand services at the Hoag Breast Center housed at the Hoag Women’s Health Institute, in Newport Beach, Calif.
Gross is a billionaire real-estate investor and a former nurse who, along with her former husband, the financier Bill Gross, has given extensively to the hospital.
Grove City College
Richard and Jayne Staley donated $4 million to his alma mater. In recognition of the gift, which is unrestricted, college officials plan to name the Hall of Arts & Letters for Richard Staley.
In 1977, he founded Flavor House, a developer and manufacturer of flavors for food products. He founded Staley Equipment Company in 1985. It manufactures and sells blending equipment to be used in the food, pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, and plastic industries. Richard Staley earned a chemical engineering degree from the college in 1962.
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Steve Tuchman and his husband, Reed Bobrick, gave $4 million to establish and endow a scholarship and a professorship for underrepresented populations, including LGBTQ people, immigrants, first-generation Americans, financially challenged students, and students with diverse cultural experiences.
The professorship is intended for an academic whose work is focused on advancing LGBTQ rights and issues, reproductive rights and issues, or immigration law practice and policy.
Tuchman is a director with Lewis Kappes, a law firm in Indianapolis, where he focuses on a variety of immigration and nationality issues. He serves as the honorary consul for Denmark in Indiana and Kentucky, and has been knighted by Margrethe II, the queen of Denmark.
Bobrick is a founding partner and the principal designer for Misch Bobrick Design, an Indianapolis interior-design firm.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.