The largest American charitable contributions of 2008.

The largest American charitable contributions of 2008.

The largest American charitable contributions of 2008.

Analysis of the year's biggest philanthropists.
Jan. 23 2009 5:54 PM

Slate 60: Donor Bios

The largest American charitable contributions of the year.

1. Leona M. Helmsley—$5.2 billion to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. Helmsley, head of the Helmsley Hotel Chain in New York, was 87 when she died in 2007. She bequeathed property, cash, stocks, and bonds worth an estimated $5.2 billion—most of her estate—to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, which is poised to become one of the wealthiest foundations in the country. The estate filed an inventory of Helmsley's assets with the Surrogate's Court of the State of New York in November. The estate is still in the process of being settled, and given the taxes it will have to pay on $52.1 million in bequests to family members and others, and the current volatility of the financial markets, the bequest's value could change.

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The trust currently has assets valued at approximately $2.9 billion, a spokeswoman for the trust said. "It is difficult to predict the amounts which will be generated by the sale of real-estate interests still held by [Helmsley's estate], all of which will be transferred to the charitable trust," the spokeswoman said. "The trustees are hopeful that those sales, coupled with the assets presently in the trust, will result in the trust's assets totaling approximately $5.2 billion." The foundation will support the care and welfare of dogs, according to a mission statement Helmsley signed in March 2003. Her intention to give the bulk of her estate to support dogs has caused both amusement and outrage, and it is unclear whether her trustees will follow her directions explicitly and establish the foundation solely for canines' benefit. One change in her estate was made in June, when the $12 million she left to a trust for her dog, a white Maltese named Trouble, was reduced to $2 million by a New York judge who ruled that the remaining $10 million would go to the charitable trust.

The 2003 mission statement also raises questions about the focus of the foundation. In that document, Helmsley states that while the charitable trust should support the care of dogs, it should also support "medical and health-care services for indigent people, with emphasis on providing care to children," and support a hospital, to carry out such care.  The 2003 document also gives the trustees some room to determine other causes the foundation could support. In March 2004, however, Helmsley signed another mission statement that revoked the 2003 document. In the new statement, Helmsley dropped the provision to help people.

2. James LeVoy Sorenson—$4.5 billion to the Sorenson Legacy Foundation. Sorenson, a medical-device inventor, was chairman of Sorenson Development, a holding company and the investment arm of the Sorenson Companies. Upon his death in January 2008 at age 86, he  bequeathed the bulk of his estate—real estate and cash worth an estimated $4.5 billion—to his family foundation, the Sorenson Legacy Foundation in Salt Lake City. The foundation supports arts groups, colleges and universities, charities that help abused children, medical-research programs, religious organizations (especially those with a Mormon emphasis), and youth groups. Its largest grants have gone to medical causes. The large infusion of money from the bequest, which was announced in February, will catapult the foundation into the ranks of the 20 wealthiest grant-makers in the United States. The estate is not yet settled, and Sorenson's family has declined to specify which organizations might eventually benefit. However, the foundation recently gave $15 million to the University of Utah for a new biomedical and neurosciences building, which the university plans to name for Sorenson. In his autobiography, Sorenson described his Depression-era childhood as one plagued by poverty. The family lived in a tar-paper shack two blocks from railroad tracks in Yuba City, Calif. "We were among many struggling for survival," he wrote.

As a child, Sorenson found that he could make a little money selling newspapers. In a local almond orchard, he collected the nuts that fell to the ground and sold them for a dime a bucket. In his teenage years, Sorenson wanted to be a physician, but a two-year stint as a Mormon missionary and service in World War II intervened. He became a pharmaceuticals salesman for the Upjohn Co. He also started investing in real estate. Through his sales work, Sorenson came across physicians and researchers who inspired many of his early inventions. In 1957 he co-founded Deseret Pharmaceuticals, and in 1962 he started the Sorenson Research  Co., which he sold to Abbott Laboratories in 1980, becoming the pharmaceutical giant's largest private shareholder.

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Sorenson, who accumulated at least 40 patents by the time he died, is best known in the medical world for helping to develop the first real-time computerized heart-monitoring system. He also invented blood-recycling and infusion systems, disposable surgical masks, and noninvasive intravenous catheters, among other widely adopted medical devices.

3. Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney—$1 billion to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Sesame Workshop. Peterson co-founded the Blackstone Group, a New York financial firm that holds interests in corporate debt, hedge funds, private equity, and real estate. He also served as secretary of commerce during the Nixon administration. Cooney co-founded the Children's Television Workshop (now called Sesame Workshop). Peterson, 82, and his wife, Joan Cooney, 79, pledged $1 billion—of which $200 million has been paid—to establish the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in New York. When  Peterson created the foundation early last year, before the economic crisis hit, he said he did so to call attention to threats to America's economic security.

The foundation's primary focus is on problems the country is facing because of the growth of federal programs like Medicare and Social Security, rapidly increasing health care costs, ballooning budget and trade deficits, low savings rates, and soaring foreign debt. Peterson said his foundation will work to increase public understanding of those problems and encourage Americans to support efforts to combat them. The foundation will also work toward making the country's educational system more competitive and quashing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In 2008 the foundation awarded grants totaling nearly $10.6 million. The Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington received $3 million to establish an institute for nuclear security; the Concord Coalition, an Arlington, Va., group Peterson co-founded in 1992 to push for fiscally responsible public policy, received $1.5 million; America's Promise Alliance, a Washington organization focused on the well-being of youths, received $1 million; and the Committee on Economic Development, in Washington, received $1 million.

In addition to their pledge to the foundation, Peterson and Cooney gave $8.5 million to the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, in Washington; and $5 million to Sesame Workshop, a New York group that produces Sesame Street and other educational programming for children. The couple also donated $1 million to the Museum of Television and Radio in New York; and $1 million to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.  Peterson serves on the boards of the Concord Coalition; the Japan Society and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York; and the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Cooney serves on the boards of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and the Paley Center for Media, all in New York. 

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4. Harold Alfond—$360 million to the Harold Alfond Foundation. Alfond, who founded Dexter Shoe  Co. and who was 93 when he died in 2007, left his life savings, about $360 million, to the Harold Alfond Foundation, in Portland, Maine. The bequest comprises stock in Berkshire Hathaway, cash, and other securities. He established the foundation in 1950 with $15,000. This new infusion has increased its assets to about $500 million. Foundation officials described Alfond as actively involved in his philanthropy. He decided which charities it would support, and he paid regular visits to those organizations, talking with staff members and clients. While he did not designate specific programs or nonprofit groups in his bequest, he stipulated that the foundation continue to follow his focus of giving primarily to charities in Maine that concentrate on health care and on education for young people.

One major beneficiary is the Harold Alfond College Challenge, which begins this month. It provides college-scholarship grants of $500 to every child born in Maine. Other recipients in Maine are the Boys & Girls Club and the YMCA at the Alfond Youth Center in Waterville, which will share $5 million; Colby College, which will receive $3 million for a sports stadium; the Kents Hill School in Readfield, which will get $2.7 million for new artificial turf and to renovate locker rooms; and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, which will receive $1.5 million for a children's garden.

 Alfond grew up in Swampscott, Mass., but earned his fortune throughout Maine. He did not attend college but followed his father into the shoe-manufacturing business. He started out making 25 cents an hour at Kesslen Shoe in Kennebunk and later used money he made from selling his car to join with his father in starting the Norrwock Shoe  Co.. He made his first million in 1944, when he sold the company for $1.1 million. He started the Dexter Shoe  Co. in 1958 and sold it to Berkshire Hathaway in 1993 for $433 million worth of Berkshire stock. As a result, Alfond and his family became the second-largest shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway stock at that time.

5. Donald B. and Dorothy Stabler—$334.2 million to the Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation and Lehigh University. Donald Stabler founded the Stabler Construction  Co. in Harrisburg, Pa., in 1940. The company grew into the Stabler Companies, which included 13 subsidiaries construction, manufacturing, and real-estate development. Donald Stabler, who died in 1997 at age 89, and his wife, who died in 2005 at 90, left approximately $300 million to their private foundation, the Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation in Harrisburg, and approximately $34.2 million to Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The Stablers created their family foundation in 1965 after their teenage daughter, Beverly, suffered traumatic head injuries in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The grant-maker supports colleges, hospitals, and other charities in central Pennsylvania.

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The bequest to Lehigh is for an endowed scholarship fund and is the largest gift the university has ever received. The scholarship fund was set up by the Stablers in 1965 and is designed to support in perpetuity Lehigh students who demonstrate financial need. Stabler earned a bachelor's degree in 1930 and a master's degree in 1932 from Lehigh, both in civil engineering. He also received an honorary degree from the institution. He was a member of the university's board of trustees for more than 30 years, serving as a corporate member and as a chairman of the development committee. He had also served as president of Lehigh's alumni association.

6. David G. and Suzanne D. Booth—$300 million to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. David Booth co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors, an international finance firm in Santa Monica, Calif. Suzanne Booth is a former art conservator. The Booths pledged $300 million to the University of Chicago's business school. The couple did not earmark the money for any specific purpose. Officials at the school say that while they have not mapped out exactly how they will use all of the money, some of it will go toward supporting current and new faculty members. Other uses, they say, could include expanding the school's research centers and broadening its international branches beyond its current London and Singapore campuses.

Although they would not say whether any of the pledged amount has been paid, the Booths have arranged to give a portion of the money upfront, while the remainder will be paid out over a period of years from their family trust. Some of the pledge will come in the form of cash payments, and some in shares of stock in Dimensional Holdings, a parent company of Dimensional Fund Advisors. Booth, who is a trustee of the university, earned a master's in business administration from its business school in 1971. He said he made the pledge because he wanted to repay the school for the intellectual epiphany he had there. Booth's insights into efficient market theories were influenced by several of the business school's professors, including Merton Miller, Frank Reilly, and his biggest influence, Eugene Fama, who became a mentor and helped Booth find his first job. 

7. Frank C. Doble—$272 million to Lesley University and Tufts University. Doble founded the Doble Engineering  Co., a Watertown, Mass., company that provides diagnostic test instruments for electric power companies. Doble, who was 83 when he died in 1969, bequeathed $136 million apiece to Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. The money comes from two trusts that Doble set up in the 1960s to benefit the two universities. Together, the trusts held an 87 percent stake in Doble Engineering and were dissolved in December 2007 when the company was acquired by ESCO Technologies, in St. Louis. Lesley and Tufts received the money in 2008.  Doble stipulated in his will that the money given to each university should go toward their endowments, but he placed no restrictions on how the universities could use the earnings.  Doble, who graduated from Tufts in 1911 with a degree in electrical engineering, had long-standing ties to the university. To pay his Tufts tuition, he installed and wired the university's telephone system while still a student. He started Doble Engineering in 1920 in Boston, but in 1925 he moved the company headquarters to the Tufts campus, where it remained until 1947.  He hired many Tufts graduates over the years, and Tufts engineering professors often worked closely with his company.

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Officials at Tufts said they knew that Doble had named the university as one of the beneficiaries of the trusts, but they didn't anticipate such a big bequest and are still deciding how to make the best use of the money. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lesley University (then called Lesley College) was primarily focused on training its students to become teachers. Doble's gift to Lesley, where he served as a trustee for nearly 20 years, grew out of his belief that high-quality elementary education was a crucial factor in developing the types of students who would want to pursue scientific studies in college. Officials said the gift to Lesley will endow academic programs and student scholarships and will be used to expand and renovate university facilities. In addition to the bequests, each university has received $34 million in dividends from the trusts in the 40 years since Doble's death.

8. Robert L. and Catherine H. McDevitt—$250 million to Georgetown University, Le Moyne College, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, and various other churches and universities. Robert McDevitt owned the McDevitt Brothers Funeral Home in Binghamton, N.Y. His mother was secretary to A. Ward Ford, president of the company that eventually became IBM. She bought IBM stock early in the company's history and gave the stock to McDevitt, who spent 70 years accumulating additional shares. The majority of the bequests he left will be paid in IBM stock. McDevitt, who died in September at age 90, and his wife, Catherine, who died in April at age 84, left bequests estimated at $250 million to 14 charities, most of which are religious groups or universities. The largest bequest was left to Georgetown University, which received about $75 million. The gift will be used to establish an endowment, the annual income of which will support faculty positions in theology, computer science, philosophy, and law. The bequest represents the largest single donation the university has ever received. McDevitt graduated from Georgetown in 1940 with a bachelor's degree in social science.

The couple also left about $50 million to Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., to be added to the college's endowment. The gift will endow professorships in computer science, information processing, physics, and religious philosophy. It will also support research, staff assistance, equipment, and technology. This gift is the largest that has ever been made to Le Moyne College. McDevitt had been a regent emeritus at the college since 1972 and served as a member of the college's board of trustees from 1977-80. The third-largest gift from the McDevitts was about $45 million to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse. The money will go into two endowments, one named for the couple and one named in honor of the couple's parents. The McDevitts' estate has not yet been entirely settled, but estimates are based on dollar figures left to some groups compared against the percentages named in McDevitt's will.

9. Michael R. Bloomberg—$235 million to arts, education, health care, and social-service organizations. Bloomberg, 66 and the mayor of New York, founded Bloomberg LP, a financial-data and news service company in New York. He gave a total of $235 million to 1,200 nonprofit groups, including Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, to support a children's hospital; the Robin Hood Foundation, a New York organization that works to fight poverty; and Stand Up to Cancer, a Pasadena, Calif., organization that supports cancer research and efforts aimed at advancing treatment for cancer patients. He would not say exactly how much money he gave to those three organizations or identify other charities to which he gave.

 Bloomberg said in 2007 that he planned to concentrate full time on his philanthropy when he leaves office at the end of this year. To that end, he established the Bloomberg Family Foundation and asked the city to advise him about whether he could diversify the investments he makes personally, and those of his new foundation, without violating his responsibilities as mayor. The board ruled that he could diversify his investments as long as the identities of the money managers and the investments they make are kept secret from him. But life as a full-time philanthropist may have to wait. In October,  Bloomberg asked the New York City Council to ease the term limits for New York mayors (who are usually allowed to serve only two terms) so that he could run for office again this year and serve a third term if he wins. The bid passed, and while Bloomberg has not formally kicked off his campaign, he has signaled that he intends to run for a third term.

10. Dorothy Clarke Patterson—$225 million to the Patterson Foundation. Patterson was the widow of James J. Patterson, a vice president and assistant managing editor of the New YorkDaily News, founded by Patterson's father, Capt. Joseph Medill Patterson, and Col. Robert R. McCormick. Capt. Patterson's father and Col. McCormick were cousins and also co-published the Chicago Tribune. Patterson, who died in 2007 at age 85, bequeathed approximately $225 million to the Patterson Foundation in Sarasota, Fla., which she established in 1997 with $2 million. Most of the bequest money is from Tribune Co. stock. Although the foundation has typically supported charities focused on social-service causes, as well as educational, literary, religious, and scientific organizations, Debra M. Jacobs, president of the foundation, said Patterson did not earmark her bequest for any specific grants or causes. In the fiscal year ending in 2007, the foundation made grants of $30,000 to $80,000 apiece to several Sarasota groups including Cardinal Mooney High School, the Goodwill Foundation, and Incarnation Catholic School. That same year, the foundation also awarded a grant to Healthy Lifestyle Choices in New Orleans, and in 2008 gave the Sarasota chapter of the American Red Cross a $100,000 grant for the group's Disaster Relief Fund.

11. Richard W. Weiland—$174.3 million to the Pride Foundation of Seattle, Stanford University, Nature Conservancy, Children's Hospital Foundation in Seattle, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and United Way of King County. Weiland, one of the first employees of Microsoft, helped design and program early interface systems for personal computers. He retired in 1988 to concentrate on philanthropy. He left $65 million to the Pride Foundation, a nonprofit group in Seattle that advocates for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and supports HIV/AIDS philanthropies. He stipulated that $46 million of the gift be used to establish an endowment, which foundation officials have named the Weiland Designated Fund, to benefit 10 groups: AmFAR; Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network; In the Life; International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Lambda Legal; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; Project Inform; and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. He directed the remaining $19 million to the Pride Foundation's endowment and its scholarship program.

Weiland, who served on the boards of both the Pride Foundation and the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, was a longtime donor to Pride and to each of the 10 other groups. He left instructions about what percentage of his donation each group would receive, but he did not place restrictions on the use of the money. Weiland's second-largest bequest, $60 million, went to Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1976. He directed the funds to the school of humanities and sciences, the school of engineering, the graduate school of business, and the medical school, and he said each dean could decide how to use the money. He also designated a portion of the gift to endow a fund for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students at the university, and to endow a fund for undergraduate education. Stanford officials would not say exactly how much money went to each school and endowment.

 Weiland also bequeathed $13 million to the Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Va., for general use and to buy land for conservation; $8 million to the Children's Hospital Foundation in Seattle for its endowment and a matching program to raise money from other donors; and $8 million to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He stipulated that the center should direct 50 percent of the donation toward HIV/AIDS research, 32 percent to pilot studies and innovative research, and 18 percent to the general fund. In addition, he left $7.6 million to the United Way of King County for its Gates Endowment, established by Weiland's friend and colleague Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft. Weiland bequeathed $3.2 million each to the Environmental Defense Fund in New York; the Lakeside School, a private school in Seattle that he had attended; and the National Wildlife Federation in Reston, Va. He also left $3.1 million to the Sierra Club Foundation.  

12. Helen L. Kimmel—$156.5 million to the New York University Langone Medical Center. Kimmel, the widow of Martin S. Kimmel, a real-estate developer in Hyde Park, N.Y., pledged $150 million to New York University Langone Medical Center for a new patient facility, which will be named for Kimmel and her husband, who died last April at the age of 92. A trustee of the medical center since 1984, Mrs. Kimmel said she and her late husband had been thinking about giving a large gift to the medical center for several years. She decided to pledge the money last year because she was impressed with the work of the medical center's dean, Robert I. Grossman.

"For me, I need to have supreme confidence in the leadership of an institution before I make this kind of a gift," she said. "Since Dr. Grossman assumed the leadership of the center in July of 2007, he has inspired faculty, staff, and trustees alike with a vision for world-class excellence and taking the medical center to the next level."

In addition to the $150 million commitment, Kimmel gave the medical center $4 million to establish a center for clinical treatment and research related to wound healing, the development of drugs that aid the healing process, and wound-care programs for medical students. She also donated $2.5 million to the medical center for a cardiology professorship. Kimmel serves on New York University's board of trustees and on the board of directors of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science and of the American Friends of the Israel Museum.

13. H.F. (Gerry) and Marguerite B. Lenfest—$139.9 million to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Curtis Institute of Music, the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades, Washington and Lee University, the Barnes Foundation, and Columbia University law school. Gerry Lenfest, who founded Lenfest Communications in Wilmington, Del., before selling the company to Comcast in 2000, and his wife pledged $27 million to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for endowment. They also pledged $25 million to the Curtis Institute of Music, also in Philadelphia. The money will go toward new housing for students and a rehearsal hall. Gerry Lenfest is chairman of the board of trustees at both the museum and the music institute.

The Lenfests also pledged $20 million to the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Media, Pa., for endowment. Of the total pledged, $5 million has been paid. The gift to the school is part of a matching agreement between the Lenfests and another couple, Henry M. and Lee Rowan, who also pledged to give the school $20 million.

In addition, the Lenfests pledged $17 million to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., to establish two endowments, one of which will support yearlong faculty sabbaticals and the other of which will support faculty summer research projects. The university must raise money from other donors to begin receiving the pledged amount. The Lenfests plan to make payments on the pledge in 2010, when the university is scheduled to kick off the public phase of its capital campaign. The couple made another matching pledge of $15 million to Columbia University's law school in New York. As with the Washington and Lee pledge, Columbia must raise money from other donors to receive all of the pledged amount from the Lenfests.

The Lenfests also pledged $3 million to Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools, and $1 million to Independence Seaport Museum, both of which are in Philadelphia. Along with the pledges they made last year, the couple also gave $15 million—of which $7.5 million has been paid—to the Barnes Foundation, a Merion, Pa., organization that houses an art collection, gives classes, and operates a 12-acre arboretum and a library. They gave $2.4 million to Natural Lands Trust so the group can buy land for conservation; $1.5 million to Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia; and $1 million each to the Library of Congress; the Salvation Army; and Swarthmore College. In addition, the Lenfests made gifts totaling $10 million to about 250 nonprofit groups, including HMS School for Children With Cerebral Palsy and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, both in Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Orchestra; and American Friends of Israel Museum, Catholic Medical Mission Board, and Teach for America.

14. David Rockefeller—$137.8 million to Harvard University, the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, the American Museum of Natural History Southwest Research Station, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Museum for African Art. Rockefeller, 93 and heir to the Standard Oil fortune, pledged $100 million to Harvard University under the condition that the university will receive the gift upon his death, and an additional $2.5 million, of which nearly $1.3 million has been paid. Of the $100 million, $70 million will support study-abroad programs for undergraduates, plus internships, service, and research programs in foreign countries, and annual stipends for undergraduates studying abroad who otherwise could not afford to do so. Rockefeller has directed the remaining $30 million to three new centers where undergraduates can study original artworks from Harvard's holdings. The study-abroad portion of the pledge is of special significance to Rockefeller, who spent the summer of 1933 in Germany and witnessed the rise of fascism in that country.

"Increasingly it's important for students to spend a significant amount of time abroad, and I just think that it isn't enough to know just about this country," he said. "The best way, from my own experience of learning about other parts of the world, is to go there and meet the people and live with them."

The art component of the pledge is also close to Rockefeller's heart. His mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, was a co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He took several art-history classes at Harvard, but, he said, it wasn't until he visited about 30 museums during a trip through Europe that he realized that seeing original artworks up close provided a deeper understanding of those he had studied in class. Rockefeller also pledged $25 million to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., for its endowment. He and a daughter, Peggy Dulany, established the 80-acre farm and agricultural-education center in 2004, in memory of Margaret (Peggy) Rockefeller, his wife, who died in 1996 and was a lifelong advocate of farmland protection and local food production. Rockefeller made three other pledges: $5 million, of which $2.5 million has been paid, to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, for the organization's MillionTreesNYC Project; $2 million, of which $1 million has been paid, to the American Museum of Natural History's Southwest Research Station in Portal, Ariz.; and $1 million, of which $500,000 has been paid, to the Museum for African Art in Long Island City, N.Y. Rockefeller also gave $1.5 million to the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx; $500,000 to the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, South Africa; and $300,000 to American Farmland Trust in Washington.

15. Jeffrey S. Skoll—$110.8 million to the Skoll Foundation. Skoll, 44, was the founding president of eBay, and he's the founder of Participant Media in Los Angeles. He gave $110.8 million to his foundation, whose flagship program is the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. The awards are grants of approximately $1 million paid out over three years to groups that "apply innovative solutions to social and environmental issues, empowering people and communities to envision and create positive change," according to the foundation's Web site. The Skoll Foundation also provided grants of $883,000 over three years to the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and $1.1 million over three years to Santa Clara University's Global Social Benefit Incubator, a program that explores ways to use technology to help people in developing countries. Skoll started the foundation in 1999. 

16. Stephen A. Schwarzman—$105 million to the New York Public Library and the Inner-City Scholarship Fund. Schwarzman, 61 and a co-founder of the Blackstone Group, a New York financial firm, pledged $100 million to the New York Public Library. The money will be used to renovate the institution's flagship building on Fifth Avenue and to build two new libraries in New York. Some of the pledged money will also go toward endowment and a program to expand the library's online services. Because of his pledge, library officials have named the Fifth Avenue facility for Schwarzman, who serves on the library's board of trustees. He said did not place any restrictions on how the money would be used because he trusts library officials to decide where funds are most needed: "They should have the maximum flexibility as to where that money goes and when. The board has already approved the general plan, and I don't see why I should make their lives more complicated in terms of executing it."

In addition, Schwarzman pledged $5 million to the Inner-City Scholarship Fund in New York to endow scholarships to allow needy children to attend Catholic schools in the city. He would not provide details of a payment schedule for either one of his pledges. Schwarzman is chairman of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and serves on the boards of the Asia Society, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Frick Collection, and the New York City Ballet.

17. Gerhard R. Andlinger—$100 million to Princeton University. Andlinger, 78, founded Andlinger & Co., an international investment and management firm in Tarrytown, N.Y. He pledged $100 million to Princeton University to support research and education on efforts to prevent global warming. The money will be paid over four or five years. Of the total, $70 million will be used by the school of engineering and applied science to create a center for the study of energy and the environment. The remaining $30 million will go toward engineering research laboratories, the hiring of four faculty members, and an endowment to finance research programs that are too new to qualify for federal support. Some of the money will also support a program that will bring industry experts, policy makers, scientists, engineers, and scholars together to study and work on energy and environmental issues.

 Andlinger was born in Austria and came to the United States in 1948 when he won an essay-writing contest sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics and Arabic from Princeton in 1952 and, later, a master's degree in business administration from Harvard. He then served in the U.S. Army, where he worked in military intelligence. He was a management consultant with McKinsey & Co. before starting his investment firm in 1976. In 2000, Andlinger gave Princeton $25 million to establish a center for the humanities, and in 1991 he gave $2 million for a professorship in social sciences.

17. Eli and Edythe L. Broad— $100 million to the Broad Foundations. Eli Broad is founding chairman of the KB Home Corporation and of SunAmerica, a financial-services company, both of which have headquarters in Los Angeles. The Broads pledged $100 million—of which $33.2 million has been paid—to the Broad Foundations, which support civic programs, contemporary-art museums, efforts to improve elementary and secondary public-school education, and medical and scientific research.

Last year the foundations awarded or pledged numerous grants, the largest of which was $400 million to endow the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a biomedical-research center that is run jointly by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The Broad Institute brings together researchers from many disciplines to fight disease and conduct research on cancer, chemical biology, genome sequencing and analysis, and medical and population genetics. The Broads helped start the institute in 2003 with a $100 million donation.

The foundations also pledged $30 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to shore up the fiscally troubled museum's finances. Broad helped found the museum and serves on its board of trustees. The couple's foundations will match donations from others to the museum's endowment up to $15 million and give the museum $3 million a year for the next five years to support exhibitions.

17. Philip H. and Penelope Knight—$100 million to the Oregon Health & Science University Foundation. Phil Knight is a founder of Nike. The Knights pledged $100 million to the Oregon Health & Science University Foundation in Portland to support the university's cancer institute, which will be named for the Knights. Most of the pledge, $98 million, will establish a fund that Brian J. Druker, the institute's director, will be able to use for any purpose within the facility. His first priority, he says, will be to use some of the money to recruit 40 to 50 new doctors and researchers over the next decade. A portion of the Knights' pledge may also be used to expand research and patient-care facilities and to support new programs, such as developing a statewide network of oncologists working jointly to provide patient care and improve cancer screening. The remaining $2 million will support a group of research laboratories at the institute that the university plans to name the Linda Conant Laboratory Suite. Conant was a close friend of the Knights who died of breast cancer in 2008. She had been treated at the institute.

17. David H. Koch—$100 million to the City Center of Music and Drama. Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries, an oil-and-gas refinery and chemicals company in Wichita, Kan., pledged $100 million to a joint capital campaign at the New York City Ballet and New York City Opera to raise money for the New York State Theater, which is home to both the ballet company and the opera company's New York performances.

The City Center of Music and Drama in New York oversees the management of the New York State Theater and will receive and administer the money. The donations, Koch said, must go toward refurbishing the theater and establishing an endowment for it. He stipulated that income from the endowment should be used to pay for the theater's future maintenance. Koch said he is donating the money because he loves the theater, and after attending performances there for the last 40 years, he has noticed that the interior of the building has become worn out. Koch has already paid $15 million. He said he plans to pay $10 million a year for the next eight years and $5 million the final year. He said he expected all the money to be paid by 2018.

17. Kenneth G. and Elaine A. Langone—$100 million to the New York University Langone Medical Center. Kenneth Langone co-founded the Home Depot retail chain and founded Invemed Associates, an investment-banking firm in New York. The Langones pledged $100 million to New York University's medical center, which the university named for the Langones. Kenneth Langone has served as chairman of the medical center's board of trustees since 1999. The couple pledged $100 million to the center that year, but did so anonymously. It wasn't until they made last year's pledge that they agreed to let the university announce their names, after medical center officials convinced them that it would encourage other philanthropists to donate money to the center. It worked. Last year the medical center raised a total of more than $506 million, including the Langones' pledge and $150 million from Helen L. Kimmel, No. 12 on the Slate 60.

Although Langone would not say how much of the two pledges has been paid, he said an "enormous" amount has been paid, and he and his wife plan to pay the remainder in the next several years. The couple said the medical center could use the money for any purpose. Medical-center officials plan to use the money to build a new hospital and will direct some of it toward efforts to revitalize and upgrade the medical center's four-block campus on the East Side of Manhattan. Langone earned his master's degree in business administration in 1960 at the university's Leonard N. Stern School of Business, where he serves as a board member.  

22. Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ—$94.8 million to the Ohio University Russ College of Engineering and Technology. The Russes founded Systems Research Laboratories, a Beavercreek, Ohio, engineering and technology research firm. Fritz Russ, who died in 2004 at 84, and his wife, Dolores, who died in 2008 at 86, bequeathed the bulk of their estate to Ohio University's Russ College of Engineering and Technology in Athens. Russ College officials said the bequest will go toward research in avionics, biomedical engineering, civil infrastructure, and energy and environment. The Russes stipulated in their will that a portion of the money must be used to endow professorships, scholarships, and leadership programs for students. Russ earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the university in 1942 and served on the university's board of trustees from 1981-90.

With a career that started at the Naval Research Laboratory, Russ helped build the world's first high-voltage, radio-frequency-generated power supply, which would later be used in television sets. In 1955, he and his wife started Systems Research Laboratories. Together they built the company's first facility themselves. The 1,200-square-foot concrete structure had such cost-savings features as an interior window between the two founders' offices, through which the couple would pass the company's lone telephone. With an eye always on thrift, Mr. Russ gave Mrs. Russ a birthday gift of asphalt tile for her office that first year. The company was responsible for such innovations as a device used by astronauts to monitor their blood pressure and radio that information back to Earth. It also developed special lasers, chemical-warfare shelters, and various types of artificial intelligence. The company's success and the couple's economizing paid off. They sold the company to Arvin Industries, an auto-parts manufacturer, in 1987 for $35.9 million. A division of the company called the Russ Research Center now provides laboratories and other types of research space for 13 companies, along with Russ College.

23. Frank Sr. and Jane Batten—$93 million to Culver Academies, Hollins University, and the Slover Library Foundation. Frank Batten is founder of Landmark Communications, now known as Landmark Media Enterprises in Virginia Beach, Va. He and his wife, Jane, pledged up to $70 million to Culver Academies, a complex of private schools and camps in Culver, Ind. The first part of the gift includes $20 million that has already been paid to create an endowment that will be used to support salaries and professional development of staff members at the secondary school. The second part of the gift is a commitment to match donations up to a cumulative total of $50 million to the school's endowment. Batten, who graduated from Culver in 1945, serves as a trustee emeritus of the Culver Educational Foundation.

The couple also gave $20 million to the Slover Library Foundation in Norfolk, Va., to help the city build a $50 million library, which will be named for Batten's uncle, Col. Samuel L. Slover. The Battens also gave $3 million to Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., to endow a leadership institute bearing the couple's name to support programs for women at the school. Batten's mother attended the university, as did Jane Batten. Batten received his bachelor's degree in economics in 1950 from the University of Virginia and his master's degree in business administration in 1952 from Harvard University. 

24. Jesse H. and Beulah C. Cox—$83.5 million to Indiana University and the Legacy Fund of Hamilton County. Jesse Cox started the J.H. Cox Manufacturing  Co., which supplied Venetian blinds to retailers such as Sears, Roebuck, and Co. He later bought a small company and started Aero Drapery & Blind. The Coxes later began farming nearly 1,500 acres in Indiana and buying and managing commercial rental property. Cox, who died in 2008 at 90, and his wife, Beulah, who died in 1999 at the age of 81, left $77 million to Indiana University and $6.5 million to the Legacy Fund of Hamilton County, in Carmel, an affiliate of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, in Indianapolis. The former is the largest gift the university has ever received and will be used to pay for scholarships for students with good grades who need financial assistance. The scholarships provide 75 percent of the total cost of attending either Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis or Indiana University-Bloomington. Cox stipulated that students receiving the scholarships work for the other 25 percent, preferably in a job that is associated with their major. The Bloomington campus receives two-thirds of the total bequest and matches that amount for student scholarships, and the Indianapolis campus receives one-third.  Jesse Cox died only 36 hours after hearing the news that the first class of students to receive his scholarship had graduated, says Curtis Simic, president emeritus of the Indiana University Foundation. "He got to see his dream come true, and then he passed away." The $6.5 million that the Coxes left to the Legacy Fund of Hamilton County is for the benefit of Coxhall Gardens. The couple had previously donated their home and surrounding 125 acres of land to the Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Department to create the gardens.

25. Henry R. and Marie-Josée Kravis—$75 million to the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation. Henry Kravis co-founded Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a New York investment-banking firm. Marie-Josée Kravis is an economist and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. The Kravises gave $75 million to their foundation, to go to Claremont McKenna College, Henrry Kravis' alma mater. He graduated in 1967 and has served on its board of trustees since 1987. The couple said the college could use the money for any purpose, and college officials have directed the money toward a new facility that will be finished in 2010. The building will house classrooms, five research institutes, and administrative offices.

26. Ronald O. Perelman—$63.5 million to the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Stand Up to Cancer, the World Trade Center Memorial Fund, and Ford's Theatre. Perelman, 66, is chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings. He pledged $25 million to Weill Medical College in New York to support research, education, and patient care at the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine. Cohen, who died in 2007 after battling cancer, and Perelman were married for nine years and had one child together. Although they divorced in 1994, he said she remained his closest friend. Perelman, who serves on the medical college's board of overseers, said he had made the gift in part to honor the memory of his former wife.

In addition, Perelman pledged $15 million to Stand Up to Cancer, which supports cancer research and efforts to advance treatment for cancer patients; $5 million to the World Trade Center Memorial Fund; and $2.5 million to Ford's Theatre. He also gave a total of $16 million to 581 nonprofit organizations, including Big Brothers Big Sisters in Philadelphia; the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Baltimore; the Rainforest Foundation U.S.; and other arts, education, Jewish, medical research, and women's-health groups.

27. Guy E. Beatty Jr.—$60 million to the College of Charleston. Beatty founded the Beatty Companies, which develop commercial real estate in McLean, Va., in 1967. The companies develop land for shopping centers and office parks, mainly in Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina. Beatty, who is retired, pledged at least $60 million to the College of Charleston in South Carolina as part of an estate trust. The college will receive $2 million per year for 30 years from the pledge—the largest it has ever received—after he dies. He designated $1 million per year for scholarships and $1 million for buildings and infrastructure. The college has not yet released any further plans for the pledge. Beatty is a member of its business school's board of governors and previously gave $2 million to create the Beatty Center, which houses the school. He has also established a scholarship fund that provides $75,000 per year to business students. His daughter graduated from the school in 1985, and a grandson graduated in 2006.

28. Malone III and Amy Mitchell—$57.2 million to Oklahoma State University. The Mitchells are the founders and former owners of SandRidge Energy, an oil-exploration and production company in Oklahoma City. The couple sold the company in late 2006 and is now involved in venture capital, energy, and agricultural businesses. They gave 1 million shares of SandRidge Energy stock, worth $57.2 million, to Oklahoma State University to create an entrepreneurship program over the next five years within the William S. Spears School of Business and also provide support for the university's athletics programs. The money will be split evenly between the business school and the athletics department. The gift for the business school designates $22 million for endowed professorships. It will create the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship, named for the former name of SandRidge Energy. The gift to the athletics department will provide endowed support to future athletics construction projects and scholarships. Both Mitchells are alumni of the university. Malone Mitchell, who was born in Stillwater, graduated with a bachelor's degree in agriculture in 1983. Amy Mitchell is a 1983 graduate of the school's College of Human Environmental Sciences.

29. Felix E. Martin Jr.—$56.6 million to the Community Foundation of Louisville, the McCallie School and the University of Kentucky. Martin was a public-relations executive at the Bell Telephone Co. and a private investor. Martin, who was 80 when he died in 2007, left the bulk of his estate to the Community Foundation of Louisville in Kentucky to establish the Felix E. Martin Jr. Foundation. He stipulated that the foundation's sole purpose would be to support educational, civic, and cultural needs in Muhlenberg County, Ky., where his family had lived since 1805. Officials at the community foundation and Martin's foundation have hired a research firm to poll Muhlenberg County residents about where support is most needed throughout the county. In addition, Martin bequeathed $2.8 million apiece to the McCallie School, a college-preparatory school for boys in Chattanooga, Tenn., and the University of Kentucky. Martin earmarked both donations to endow scholarships for students from Muhlenberg County. He also left $1 million to his church, Greenville United Methodist Church. Martin grew up in Greenville and graduated from the McCallie School in 1945. After high school, he joined the U.S. Maritime Service and served on a ship in the Mediterranean Sea. After World War II ended, he entered the University of Kentucky, but he left in 1950 when he was drafted into the Army to serve in the Korean War. He was honorably discharged from the Army in 1952 and finally returned to the university. He earned a bachelor's degree in commerce in 1954.

30. Paul G. Allen—$55.9 million to the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the Experience Music Project, and the Science Fiction Museum. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft and founder of Vulcan, an investment company in Seattle, gave $22.9 million to the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, which he founded in 2003. The money will support the institute's neuroscience and genomics research programs, including the Allen Brain Atlas projects, an effort to map gene activity in the mouse brain and the human brain. He also gave $22 million to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. The money will be used to support arts and culture organizations and social-service programs. Last year, the foundation awarded $11.8 million in grants across the country, including $1.6 million to the Technology Access Foundation in Seattle to establish a school that will promote academic achievement for low-income and minority youths; $600,000 to Aviation High School in Des Moines, Wash., for a mentorship and internship program; $300,000 to the Albertina Kerr Centers, in Portland, Ore., for programs serving child-welfare groups and the juvenile-justice system; and $300,000 to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in Ashland, for new productions. In addition, Allen gave $9.6 million to the Experience Music Project, a museum he created in 2000 that is dedicated to rock 'n' roll, and to the Science Fiction Museum, which he started in 2003. He also gave a total of $1.4 million to several nonprofit groups, including the Seattle Seahawks Charitable Foundation, which primarily supports youth programs.

31. Stewart A. and Lynda R. Resnick—$55.3 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Resnicks own and manage Roll International Corporation, a Los Angeles holding company for Paramount Farms, a tree-farming business; Fiji Water; POM Wonderful, a grower of pomegranates and manufacturer of pomegranate juice; and Teleflora, a service for ordering flowers by phone and online, among other companies. The couple has pledged $55 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Resnicks will pay $45 million over 10 years toward the museum's campaign to unify its campus and refurbish and expand its galleries. The museum will name a new building, designed by architect Renzo Piano, for the couple in honor of the gift. The Resnicks have also promised to donate at least $10 million in artwork as part of the pledge. They also gave $304,000 to the museum in 2008 to help it buy art, run fundraising events, and provide unrestricted support.

Lynda Resnick, who grew up in Philadelphia, opened her first business, an advertising agency, in California at age 19. Stewart Resnick grew up in New Jersey and also began his own business, a janitorial service, at a young age. The couple bought their first business together, Teleflora, in 1979. Lynda Resnick is a vice chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's board of trustees and chairwoman of its acquisitions and executive committees. She also serves on the executive board for the medical sciences at UCLA; is vice chairwoman of the board of directors for the Prostate Cancer Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif.; is a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and is a trustee of the Milken Family Foundation, also in Santa Monica. Stewart Resnick is also a member of the executive board for the medical sciences at UCLA; the board of trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles; and the board of Conservation International in Arlington, Va.

32. Donald J. and Ruth Weber Goodman—$52.7 million to the Cleveland Foundation. Dr. Goodman was a retired dentist and private investor. Ruth Goodman inherited the estate of her father, Arthur Weber, who founded Triplex Screw Corporation in Cleveland. Dr. Goodman, who died in 2007 at 84, and Ruth Goodman, who died in 2008, at 70, left $52.7 million in a combination of stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and cash to the Donald J. and Ruth Weber Goodman Philanthropic Fund, an endowment they had established with the Cleveland Foundation in 2004. The fund supports research and education at Case Western Reserve University's school of medicine and University Hospitals Ireland Cancer Center. The fund also supports faculty and research for Case Western's school of dental medicine, medical programs on Ohio public-radio stations, and new equipment and patient care at the Ireland Cancer Center. Dr. Goodman became interested in giving money for medical research after he developed leukemia, which was diagnosed as terminal in 2000. Doctors told him he had only a few weeks to live, says Caprice Bragg, vice president for gift planning at the Cleveland Foundation, but he was treated at the Ireland center with Mylotarg, then an experimental drug, and lived for seven more years. Dr. Goodman received his dental degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1945. The Goodmans both grew up in Cleveland and most recently lived in Pepper Pike, a nearby suburb.

33. Jerome and Anne Fisher—$50 million to the University of Pennsylvania. Jerome Fisher is a co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nine West Group, which designs and markets women's shoes and accessories. The Fishers have pledged $50 million to Penn to build a biomedical-research center dedicated to the field of translational medicine, which emphasizes the rapid conversion of laboratory discoveries into medical treatments. The Anne and Jerome Fisher Translational Research Center, scheduled to open in 2010, will hold 400,000 square feet of research space. University officials hope to eventually recruit 1,000 scientists, researchers, and other staff members for the facility. The gift will also provide a professorship in hematology and oncology named in honor of the couple's daughter, Jodi Fisher.

Fisher received a bachelor's degree in economics from the university's Wharton School in 1953. The Fishers, who have grandchildren who are alumni of Penn, are longtime supporters of the university, having given more than $14 million before this gift. Jerome Fisher served on the Wharton School's undergraduate executive board and board of overseers from 1992-2004. He was a university trustee from 1996-2000 and has been a member of Penn Medicine's board of trustees since 2006. Anne Fisher served on the board of overseers for the graduate school of fine arts, now the school of design, from 1992 -2002. Both served as members of the College House advisory board from 2000-01.

34. Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman—$50 million to the University of Oxford. Moritz is a partner at Sequoia Capital, a venture-capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif. Heyman is a writer.  The couple pledged $50 million to the University of Oxford, specifically for Christ Church College. Under the terms of the gift, Christ Church will transfer an additional $150 million of its endowment into the Oxford University Asset Management fund, which was established in 2007 to improve the management of the university's long-term investments. Christ Church's total stake in the investment pool will rise to more than $200 million. The gift from Moritz and Heyman will be added to the college's endowment. Income from the endowment will support faculty positions, maintain and restore buildings, and be used for student grants and scholarships. The gift will also be used as a match: One-eighth of the annual income will be released from the fund only when the same amount is donated by recent Christ Church alumni. Moritz is originally from Wales. He graduated from Oxford with an undergraduate degree in modern history in 1976.

35. Perot family—$50 million to the Museum of Nature & Science. The five children of H. Ross Perot and his wife, Margot, pledged $50 million to the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas. The donors are Suzanne McGee, Nancy Mulford, Katherine Perot, Ross Perot Jr., and Carolyn Rathjen. The gift funds a new 150,000-square-foot museum that will provide exhibition space to house collections and offer hands-on activities. The new facility will be known as the Perot Museum of Nature & Science in honor of the donors' parents. Their father, H. Ross Perot, founded Electronic Data Systems, a technology company in Plano, Texas, that was purchased by General Motors in 1984, and Perot Systems, a technology company in Plano, Texas, of which he is chairman emeritus of the board. Ross Perot ran for president of the United States in 1992 and 1996. The gift is the largest in the museum's $155 million capital campaign, bringing the total amount raised so far to $106 million, and ensures that groundbreaking on the new facility will take place in late 2009. No information about the pledge's payment schedule was available.

36. Emily Rauh Pulitzer—$47.5 million to the Harvard Art Museum and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Pulitzer is the founder of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, a former curator at the St. Louis Art Museum and at the Harvard Art Museum, and the widow of Joseph Pulitzer Jr., former editor and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Pulitzer, now in her mid-70s, gave $45 million, along with a collection of 31 pieces of art, to the Harvard Art Museum. While the museum declined to attach a value to the donated artwork, it is worth about four times the value of the cash gift, said Bradford Voigt, director of institutional advancement at the museum. Voigt said the gift is the largest in the museum's history. The art museum is undergoing a major renovation project, to which $40 million of Mrs. Pulitzer's gift will be committed. The remaining $5 million will endow the department of modern and contemporary art. Pulitzer has paid nearly half of the gift and will pay most of the balance over the next two to three years, Voigt said. A small portion will be bequeathed to the institution. Pulitzer and her late husband, who died at 80 in 1993, each had a decades-long involvement with Harvard and a serious passion for art. Joseph Pulitzer, who graduated from the university in 1936 with a bachelor's degree in fine art, gave both money and artwork to the institution over many years.

Emily Pulitzer grew up in Cincinnati and received a bachelor's degree in art history from Bryn Mawr College in 1955. She served as assistant curator of drawings at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum from 1957-64, earning a master's degree at Harvard during that time. She later took the job of curator at the St. Louis Art Museum. She married Pulitzer, a widower, in 1973.  She also gave $2.5 million to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, an institution in St. Louis that is named for her family. Pulitzer serves on the board of overseers of Harvard University and the board of trustees of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, as well as on the boards of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; the Grand Center Arts and Entertainment District in St. Louis; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

37. Lorry I. Lokey—$46.7 million to the Stanford University Donor Advised Fund. Lokey, 81, founded Business Wire, a San Francisco company that distributes news releases. He sold the company to Berkshire Hathaway in 2006 for an undisclosed amount. He pledged $42 million to the Stanford University Donor Advised Fund for a stem-cell research center. Lokey also pledged $33 million to support the center in 2007. The center is scheduled to open in 2010 and will be named for Lokey, who graduated from Stanford in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. Lokey said in a press release that he decided to support stem-cell research after the Bush administration restricted federal support for it in 2001. He also donated real estate worth $4.5 million, and $200,000 in cash and securities, to the Lorry I. Lokey Supporting Foundation, in San Francisco.

38. Theodore and Vada Stanley—$45 million to the Stanley Family Foundation and the Stanley Medical Research Institute. Theodore Stanley is the founder of MBI, a Norwalk, Conn., company that develops and markets collectible items. The Stanleys gave $36.5 million to the Stanley Family Foundation, which they established in 1985 to support mental-health services, education, and the arts. The couple also donated $5 million to the Stanley Medical Research Institute to support research and treatment of mental illness, which touched their family in the 1980s when their son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. They helped found the institute in 1989. In addition, the couple gave a total of $3.5 million to about 100 nonprofit groups throughout the country, including: A Glimmer of Hope Foundation in Austin, Texas; the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in Atlanta; the Fuller Center for Housing in Americus, Ga.; and the International Rescue Committee in New York.

39. Adrienne Arsht—$43.3 million to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, the University of Miami, and United Way of Miami-Dade. Arsht is the chairman emeritus of TotalBank, in Miami. She sold TotalBank to Banco Popular, with headquarters in Madrid, in November 2007. She pledged $30 million to be paid over three years, to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, formerly the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts. The center received a total of $13 million toward the pledge in 2008, $4 million of which went to support programs, $7 million of which was used to pay off a bank loan, and $2 million of which was used to refund a grant made by the Carnival Corporation, a cruise line with headquarters in Miami. The Carnival Corporation agreed to relinquish its naming rights, for which it had contributed $10 million, to Arsht after her donation. The company's gift had entitled it to name the center for 10 years. Arsht said she did not ask for her name to be put on the center.

In addition, Arsht pledged $5 million to the University of Miami. She designated $2 million for the university's ethics programs to support an ethics debate series, a distinguished-speakers program, research, visiting scholars, and faculty. Another $1 million will go toward the university's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, at the Miller School of Medicine, to create a retinal degeneration research laboratory. The remaining $2 million will support other university programs. Arsht also pledged $5 million to the United Way of Miami-Dade. She made several smaller gifts as well: She donated $2 million to the Omega Foundation in Washington; $500,000 in cash and $100,000 in furniture to Blair House in Washington; $250,000 each to the Cuban American National Council in Miami, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York; and $200,000 to the University of Pennsylvania law school, in Philadelphia.

40. Sheldon G. and Miriam Adelson—$41.9 million to the Birthright Israel Foundation and the Rashi School. Sheldon Adelson is chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Miriam Adelson is a physician who specializes in drug abuse and addiction treatment. The couple pledged $30 million to the Birthright Israel Foundation, a New York organization that gives young Jewish American adults free 10-day trips to Israel if they have never visited the country. The Adelsons plan to pay $20 million of the pledge by the end of 2009 and the remaining $10 million in 2010. In addition to the pledge, the couple gave Birthright nearly $6.9 million in cash for a matching-gift program. The Adelsons also pledged $5 million to the Rashi School, a Jewish elementary and middle school, in Newton, Mass. The money—which will be paid over five years at $1 million per year—will help finance a new facility in Dedham, Mass.

41. Jon L. Stryker—$41.8 million to the Arcus Foundation and the Arcus Operating Foundation. Stryker is an architect and heir to the Stryker Corp. fortune. The medical-products company was founded by his grandfather, Homer Stryker, a surgeon who invented the mobile hospital bed. Stryker, 50, gave $34.5 million to the Arcus Foundation to support the organization's two primary programs: combating discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, and ensuring the survival of great apes and their habitats. Stryker established the foundation in 2000 and is its president. He also gave $6.5 million to the Arcus Operating Foundation. In addition to his Arcus gifts, Stryker donated $284,949 to Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Fla.; $164,384 to the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Fla.; $150,000 to the Museum of Modern Art in New York; $110,000 to Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1982; and $25,000 to the Synergos Institute, a New York charity that works to fight poverty in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He also gave a total of $150,983 to other arts, conservation, education, and human-service groups.

42. Lawrence J. Ellison—$40.3 million to the Ellison Medical Foundation. Ellison, the founder of Oracle, gave $40.3 million to the Ellison Medical Foundation for biomedical research. The foundation, established in 1997, supports research on age-related diseases and disabilities, stem-cell research, and other areas of scientific study that might not be supported by other financing sources. Over the last year, the foundation has supported stem-cell research related to aging, research into the genes that influence a person's longevity, and research into the use of neuroimaging to find biological clues to neural ailments such as Parkinson's disease, as well as such nonlife-threatening conditions as autism and dyslexia.

43. Andrew S. Grove—$40 million to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Grove, 72 and a co-founder of Intel, pledged $40 million to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease and improving therapies for those living with the disease. Grove was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2000 and serves as a senior adviser to the Fox Foundation. His donation will come to the foundation after his death. Born in Hungary, Grove came to the United States in 1956 and in 1960 graduated from the City College of New York with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. He received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1963 from the University of California-Berkeley.

43. John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn—$40 million to the San Francisco Opera and Family & Children Services. John Gunn is chairman of Dodge & Cox Funds in San Francisco. Cynthia Gunn is a former editor and director of the Portable Stanford book series. The Gunns gave $40 million to the San Francisco Opera, of which $35 million will underwrite new artistic projects and $5 million will endow the general director's chair. Opera officials say the majority of the gift, which was the largest in the company's history, has been paid. The couple previously supported individual productions at the opera and underwrote a free live video simulcast of Rigoletto at Stanford University's Frost Amphitheater in 2006. Gunn is chairman of the opera's board of directors. Gunn's relationship with the opera goes back to his high-school days, when he attended dress rehearsals and operas with a classmate and friend, Ronald Adler, who later became director of the Berlin State Opera. (Adler's father, Kurt Herbert Adler, served as general director of the San Francisco Opera.) The couple also gave $25,000 in 2008 to Family & Children Services.

45. William B. Quarton—$35.4 million to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, the St. Luke's Hospital Foundation, and the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. Quarton served as chief executive officer of WMT, the first television station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He later developed cable-television franchises in 15 Iowa cities, which he sold with a partner in 1983. He was also a private investor. Quarton, who died in 2007 at the age of 104, bequeathed $35 million to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, $260,000 to the St. Luke's Hospital Foundation in Cedar Rapids, and $100,000 to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. He stipulated that the gift to the community foundation be designated in the following ways: $5 million to an endowment for the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, $3.5 million to an endowment for the Community Health Free Clinic, $3.5 million to an endowment for Coe College, and $1.75 million to an endowment for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. The remainder of the donation, $21.25 million, is an unrestricted gift. His gifts to the hospital foundation and to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation were designated for their endowments. Quarton was born in Algona, Iowa, and spent most of his life in Cedar Rapids. Officials of the community foundation say Quarton was a strong believer in unrestricted gifts. "He would often say you can't predict changing community need. He wanted his philanthropic assets to adapt to circumstances that neither he nor anyone could foresee," said Daniel R. Baldwin, chief executive officer of the foundation. "His wisdom proved true when Cedar Rapids suffered a 500-year flood in June 2008. His [gift] will be an important part of our city's recovery."

46. Michael S. "Mickey" and Janie Maurer—$35.2 million to the Indiana University Foundation. Michael Maurer, 66, is the chairman of the IBJ Media Corporation, a media company in Indianapolis that publishes three newspapers. He is also chairman of the National Bank of Indianapolis, which he co-founded in 1993. The couple pledged $35 million to the Indiana University Foundation for the Indiana University law school to support scholarships for students. The school was renamed the Michael Maurer School of Law. The gift will be invested in the foundation's endowment, and the income will be used to support the Michael and Janie Maurer Scholarships in perpetuity. The commitment will also be matched by Indiana University. The gift is the largest ever made to support the law school, according to officials at the institution. Maurer has been a supporter of Indiana University for more than 30 years, graduating from its law school in 1967. He received the university's Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 2001. He received the university's Foundation President's Medal in 2007 for his long-term support of the foundation and the university. He also chaired the law school's first capital campaign during the 1990s. The Maurers said they also donated approximately $200,000 to a variety of other charities throughout central Indiana in 2008, but they would not provide further details.

47. Dennis J. and Constance Templeton Keller—$35 million to Princeton University, the Nature Conservancy, and the African Wildlife Foundation. Dennis Keller is founding chairman of DeVry, a publicly held higher-education company. He is also a director of Nicor, a natural-gas distributor in Naperville, Ill., and of Ryerson, a metal-processing and distribution company in Chicago. The Kellers pledged $25 million to Princeton University to endow and name the university's new Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, which will integrate engineering courses with those in the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences. One of the center's goals is that all Princeton students take at least one engineering course. The gift will also support internships, entrepreneurial activities, lectures, and professorships at the center. The Kellers designated $2.5 million of the gift for a general innovation fund in engineering, and the same amount to support the Mpala Research Center in Kenya, where Princeton scientists and engineers collaborate on solving problems related to the sustainable use of land, water, and animal resources. The couple also gave $5 million each to the Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Va., and the African Wildlife Foundation in Washington, for their joint land-conservation projects in Africa. Dennis Keller graduated from Princeton in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in economics and earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago in 1968. He is a trustee of Princeton University and of the University of Chicago, and chairman of the board of trustees of the African Wildlife Foundation. Constance Keller is chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Nature Conservancy's Illinois chapter.

47. Andrew H. and Ann Rubenstein Tisch—$35 million to Cornell University. Tisch is co-chairman of the board of directors and chairman of the executive committee of Loews Corporation, a holding company in New York with interests in oil and gas, financial services, real estate, and hotels. The Tisches also owned the Loews movie-theater chain, which they sold in 1985. They have pledged $35 million to Cornell University, which will be paid off in two years, to create an endowment supporting the Tisch University Professorships, for universitywide faculty recruitment and retention at the provost's discretion. The pledge is meant to give Cornell flexibility to pursue new programs, rebuild academic departments depleted by multiple retirements, strengthen emerging interdisciplinary fields, and attract and retain the most sought-after midcareer professors, university officials said.

The Tisch family has long supported Cornell, financing scholarships and contributing consistently to the annual fund. In 2002, Andrew and his brother, James, both alumni, established the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professorship, which allows a faculty member approaching retirement to continue teaching for as many as three years while freeing the provost to hire another professor. Andrew Tisch serves on Cornell's board of trustees, alumni-affairs steering committee, major-gifts committee, and campaign cabinet. He earned a bachelor's degree in hotel administration from Cornell in 1971. He serves on the governing boards of the Children's Hearing Institute, the City Parks Foundation, the New York City Police Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, all in New York. He also serves on the Harvard Business School Dean's Board of Advisers. Ann Tisch serves on the boards of Washington University in St. Louis, her alma mater; New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; and the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association in New York. She is also founder and president of the Young Women's Leadership Network in New York.

49. Peter T. Paul—$34.2 million to the University of New Hampshire, the Peter T. Paul Foundation, Boston University, Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, St. Vincent DePaul Society, and several health and social-services organizations. Paul, 65, is the chief executive of Headlands Asset Management, a residential mortgage investment business in San Rafael, Calif. He was previously president of Paul Financial, a private mortgage-banking company he founded in 2003. He is also owner of Peter Paul Wines in San Rafael and president of West Biofuels, an energy research and development company in Woodland, Calif. He pledged $25 million in June 2008 to the University of New Hampshire as a challenge to alumni, friends, and New Hampshire businesses to raise an additional $25 million for a new building for the college of business and economics. The pledge will be paid over five years at about $5 million per year. Upon approval of the university's board, the college with be named for him. He also donated almost $150,000 to the university in 2008 as an unrestricted gift and to establish two funds for research and faculty development and scholarship support for the business school.

Paul also started his own private charitable organization in 2008, the Peter T. Paul Foundation. He contributed $8.3 million to the foundation last year and said he would probably use that money to fulfill pledge commitments. He also pledged $500,000 to Boston University to pay for nontenured faculty salaries; $50,000 to the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center to pay for scholarships for educational programs there; $20,000 to the human-service group the St. Vincent De Paul Society to help renovate that group's kitchen facilities; and $215,000 to various other health and social-service charities that he did not name. Paul graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in business administration and from Boston University in 1971 with a master's degree in the same subject.

50. David F. Bolger—$30.5 million to the Valley Hospital Foundation. Bolger is president of Bolger & Co., a real estate and investment firm in Ridgewood, N.J. He pledged $30 million over five years to the Valley Hospital Foundation, in Ridgewood, N.J. The gift will help the hospital with renovations and new construction, including the building of a new inpatient facility. The new building, which will bear Bolger's name, will include "the most advanced operating rooms and procedure suites, the latest imaging technology, and three floors of spacious single patient rooms," hospital officials said. Bolger also gave $450,000 to the hospital in March 2008 so it could buy a portable CT scanner. Bolger grew up in Midland Park, N.J., and lives in Sarasota, Fla., and northern New Jersey. He told hospital officials that he made his gift to enhance "the quality of life for all our citizens, regardless of race, religion, gender, or social standing." He supported many other charities in 2008, including the Christian Health Care Center in Wyckoff, N.J.; the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Mount Hermon, Mass.; and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. He declined to disclose how much money he gave to those groups.

51. Edmund A. and Barbara E. Hajim—$30.1 million to the University of Rochester. Edmund Hajim was chairman of the investment bank Furman Selz for 15 years. He sold that bank to ING Group in 1997 and became chairman of ING Aeltus Group. In 2002 he started his own investment business, called MLH Capital, and he is also a director at Morgan Joseph, an investment bank in New York. The Hajims pledged $30 million to the University of Rochester to benefit Rochester's school of engineering and applied sciences. The gift is the largest that the university has ever received. It will be split nearly evenly between providing scholarships for engineering students who have significant financial need and supporting the engineering school's endowment.

Hajim would not release all the terms of the pledge but said that he and his wife paid $2 million in 2008 toward the pledge and that most of the endowment part of the pledge will come as a bequest after their deaths. Hajim's goal for the scholarship portion of the gift is to ultimately provide financial support to five Hajim Scholars in each of the four undergraduate classes, for a total of 20 scholarships. He also gave $50,000 in 2008 to the university as an unrestricted annual gift. Edmund Hajim, who grew up both in Los Angeles and on the East Coast, graduated from the university in 1958 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. He earned a master's degree in business administration with honors from Harvard in 1964. Hajim is chairman of the board of trustees at the University of Rochester. He has been on various committees and councils at the university for more than 30 years and has been a trustee since 1988. He and his wife are also trustees of their own Hajim Family Foundation, which he says awards approximately $300,000 per year.

51. Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang—$30.1 million to Stanford University and several education and social-service charities. Jen-HsunHuang is founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corporation, a computer-graphics company in Santa Clara, Calif. The Huangs pledged $30 million over seven years to the Stanford School of Engineering to help build the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center. The 130,000-square-foot building, expected to be completed by 2010, will be designed with energy- and water-saving features, according to officials at Stanford. The couple also donated $140,000 to various education and social-services groups in 2008. Jen-Hsun Huang earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1992.

53. Steven G. Mihaylo$30 million to California State University-Fullerton.Mihaylo, 65 founded Inter-Tel, a manufacturer of voice and data network equipment for small to midsized businesses worldwide, in 1969. He sold Inter-Tel to the Canadian telecommunications company Mitel the following year. Mihaylo recently became chief executive of iMergent, a company in Orem, Utah, that provides software for Internet commerce for small businesses and entrepreneurs. He pledged $30 million—10 percent of which has been paid in cash—to California State University-Fullerton's College of Business and Economics to endow professorships, faculty programs, student scholarships, and programs that include enhanced career-placement services and expansion of the master's of business administration program. With this gift, the college will also be named for Mihaylo. He will pay off the remainder of the pledge—the biggest the university has ever received—over the next nine years.

Mihaylo grew up in Southern California and is an alumnus of the university. He spent three years in the U.S. Army before enrolling at the university with aid from the GI Bill. He graduated in 1969 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. He is the chairman of the Campaign for Mihaylo College of Business and Economics, a member of both the dean's advisory board and the board of governors, and a lifetime member of the alumni association. His gift of $4.5 million in 2004 kicked off the business school's campaign and secured naming rights to the school's new Steven G. Mihaylo Hall, which opened in August.

54. Peter B. Lewis—$29.7 million to various environmental, human rights, progressive, and youth groups. Lewis, 75, is chairman of the Progressive Corp. He donated $29.7 million to more than 90 nonprofit organizations in the areas of the environment, human rights, progressive causes, and youth. Lewis graduated from Princeton University in 1955 and serves on that institution's board. He began working for Progressive, the company his father founded, in 1955 and was chief executive officer of the company from 1965 to 2000, when he stepped down from that role. Lewis is a former chairman of the board of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and serves on the board of the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington.

55. Joseph H. Moss—$25.2 million to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Moss is a private investor and a retired Delta Air Lines pilot. Moss, 86, gave $25.2 million worth of stock in March 2008 to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to support the hospital's transplant program and staff, and to buy new equipment. Part of the gift—$1.5 million—will also pay for a professorship in liver transplant, pediatrics, and hepatology for Rene Romero, medical director of the pediatric liver transplant program at the hospital. The rest of the donation is unrestricted. Moss says he has always tried to help children with his philanthropy. In 2004, he gave $50,000 to help pay for a kidney transplant for Edgar Gutierrez, a boy from Mexico whom Moss read about in the newspaper. He is very interested in the technology of organ transplants. Moss, who lived in Atlanta for more than 50 years, now lives in Austin, Texas, and in New York. He began investing in the stock market as soon as he returned home from serving in World War II in 1945. He continues to invest in the stock market through a small company bearing his name.

56. David and Patricia Atkinson—$25 million to the Princeton HealthCare System. David Atkinson is a private investor. He retired in 1992 as a general partner of Miller, Anderson & Sherrerd, a money-management firm in suburban Philadelphia. He was previously a vice president at Morgan Stanley and managed mutual funds and portfolios for other investment banks. The Atkinsons pledged $25 million, of which $8.5 million has been paid, to support hospital relocation and construction of the new University Medical Center at Princeton, the acute-care hospital of the Princeton HealthCare System. The new hospital is scheduled to open in 2011 on a 50-acre site in Plainsboro, N.J., much larger than the 9-acre site in Princeton that contains the old facility. The Atkinson pledge is thought to be the largest gift from an individual ever made to a hospital in New Jersey. The pledge, scheduled to be paid over three years, is a matching gift. To encourage the hospital's physicians and staff members to support the construction project, $5 million of the pledge will be used to match each dollar committed by employees who make gifts toward the hospital's relocation. The rest of the money will be used to provide $2 for every $1 contributed toward the construction of the new hospital. The Atkinsons have long supported the hospital. Patricia Atkinson served as a membership chair for the Princeton Hospital Auxiliary for 10 years and has volunteered at the Princeton Meals on Wheels program for more than 20 years. David Atkinson has also been a patient of the hospital.

56. Verna B. Dauterive—$25 million to the University of Southern California. Dauterive is a retired school teacher and principal. She is the widow of Peter W. Dauterive, who founded the Founders Savings & Loan Association in Los Angeles. She pledged $25 million to the University of Southern California in memory of her husband, who graduated from the university in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. He died in 2002 at 83. The university has not yet decided how to use Dauterive's gift, according to a spokesman at the institution. Both the university and Dauterive declined to disclose any terms of the pledge. The Dauterives were both originally from Louisiana. Verna Dauterive earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, in 1943. She went on to earn her master's and doctoral degrees in education at the University of Southern California in 1949 and 1966, respectively. She lives in Los Angeles.

56. Joe and Rika Mansueto—$25 million to the University of Chicago. Joe Mansueto is chairman of Morningstar, an investment-research company in Chicago. The Mansuetos pledged $25 million in unrestricted funds to the University of Chicago. In recognition of the gift, the university is naming the school's new library after them. The library was designed by Chicago architect Helmut Jahn and will be built partially underground and topped with a 35-foot-high glass dome. It will have the capacity to house 3.5 million volumes of print material. Both the donors and the university declined to discuss any terms of the pledge. The Mansuetos are alumni of the university: Joe Mansueto received his bachelor's degree in business administration in 1978 and his master's degree in business administration in 1980. Rika Mansueto received her bachelor's degree in anthropology in 1991.

56. Benjamin and Luanne Russell—$25 million to Children's Hospital of Alabama, the Alexander City Schools Education Foundation, and the Alabama Child Caring Foundation. Benjamin Russell is chairman of the board of Russell Lands, a company in Alexander City, Ala., that develops residential real estate in Alabama and manages lakeside rental homes. The Russells pledged $25 million to the Children's Hospital of Alabama to support a new building on the hospital's downtown Birmingham campus. The hospital will be renamed for Russell's grandfather, Benjamin Russell, who founded several businesses in central Alabama, including a bank, a phone company, a power company, and a textile and apparel company. The new building is anticipated to open in 2012. The hospital kicked off its "Keeping Promises" capital campaign in the spring of 2008, designed to raise $100 million by the hospital's 100th anniversary in 2011. The gift from the Russells is part of the new campaign. The couple also donated $30,000 to the Alexander City Schools Education Foundation and $15,000 to the Alabama Child Caring Foundation in Birmingham, which helps provide medical care for uninsured children. Neither the Russells nor the recipient charities would provide further details about the pledge and gifts.

56. R. Michael and Mary Shanahan—$25 million toHarvey Mudd College. R. Michael Shanahan is chairman emeritus of Capital Research and Management Company in Los Angeles, an adviser to the American Funds. The Shanahans pledged $25 million to Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., which is the largest gift to the institution in its history. R. Michael Shanahan has been a Mudd trustee since 1992. The first half of the five-year pledge was given in October, and the gift is unrestricted. The money will be used to advance the college's strategic plan, the college announced. The couple previously gave $10 million to the college to support scholarships, a new dining center, an endowed faculty chair, and other projects.

R. Michael Shanahan grew up in Los Angeles and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration at Stanford University. He spent three years in the Navy as a junior officer and started working in 1965 at Capital Research as a financial analyst. Mary Shanahan, who grew up in Kansas City, Mo., earned her degree from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. She is a regent of that institution and a trustee of Notre Dame de Sion School of Kansas City.

56. Oscar L. Tang—$25 million to Phillips Academy. Tang is a private investor who founded the investment firm Reich & Tang in New York. He is also president of the Phillips Academy Board of Trustees. He pledged $25 million to Phillips Academy to support the school's strategic plan, which includes expanding access for the most qualified students to attend Phillips regardless of their ability to pay and attracting highly qualified faculty members. Of the total pledged, $6 million will be used for the restoration and expansion of the Addison Gallery of American Art. Both Tang and Phillips Academy declined to discuss any further terms of the pledge. Tang, who immigrated to the United States from China when he was 11, graduated from Phillips Academy in 1956. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Yale in 1960 and a master's degree in business.