A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation
The brothers Leonard and Ronald Lauder, and their children — William Lauder, Gary Lauder, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, and Jane Lauder — pledged to give the foundation $200 million over the next decade to speed up the research and development of drugs aimed at preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease. A portion of the family’s pledge will cover the nonprofit’s expenses so that all other donations to the organization will go solely toward research and drug development.
The billionaire brothers launched the foundation in 1998 to find a cure for the disease that afflicts more than 50 million people around the world, and as a way to honor their late mother, Estée Lauder, a co-founder of the family’s eponymous cosmetics company. Estée Lauder had Alzheimer’s disease when she died in 2004 at 97.
Leonard Lauder is chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies and a prolific philanthropist who recently appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors. His son Gary Lauder is managing director of Lauder Partners LLC, a Menlo Park, Calif., venture-capital firm that invests in technology companies. His other son, William Lauder, is executive chairman of Estée Lauder Companies.
Ronald Lauder is a former Estée Lauder Companies executive who served as U.S. ambassador to Austria from 1986 to 1987, and as deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy at the U.S. Department of Defense prior to that. His daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer serves as style director for the Estée Lauder Companies and also operates her own lines of cosmetics, fashion, and furniture. Ronald Lauder’s other daughter, Jane Lauder, serves as global brand president of Clinique, a cosmetics line owned by Estée Lauder Companies.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Steven Wymer gave $25 million to support the construction of Gies College of Business’s new building, which will be named for the donor and is scheduled to be completed by late 2024.
Wymer is is a portfolio manager in the equity and high-income division at Fidelity Investments. Before joining Fidelity in 1997, he worked as a small-business consultant at Deloitte Haskins & Sells. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the business school in 1985.
Columbia University
Jacklyn and Miguel Bezos gave $21 million through their Bezos Family Foundation to establish the Center for the Transition to Parenthood, which will be housed in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. The new center will focus on improving prenatal care and the overall health of infants, addressing the mental-health needs of parents, and promoting the well-being of families.
Researchers and physicians there will develop, test, and put into practice a range of educational tools for new parents to help reduce stress, improve social support, protect sleep, set intentions for parenting that take into account one’s own upbringing, prepare for postpartum isolation, manage couple conflict, and foster an understanding of fetal exposures that increase the risk of neurobehavioral disorders later in life.
Jacklyn Bezos is the mother of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon. Miguel Bezos, Jeff Bezos’s stepfather, spent 32 years working as an engineer and manager with the oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil. The couple have given extensively to nonprofits in recent years and appeared on the Chronicle’s most recent Philanthropy 50, a list of the biggest donors of the year.
STARS College Network (Small Town And Rural Students)
Byron and Tina Trott gave $20 million gift through their Trott Family Philanthropies to launch this new nonprofit consortium of 16 colleges and universities that will create programs aimed at assisting students from small-town and rural America enroll in, succeed at, and graduate from the undergraduate program of their choice. The programs will be designed to help students find the best institution for them, whether or not they ultimately choose to enroll at a STARS member school.
Byron Trott is chairman and co-CEO of BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank and investment firm that caters to ultra-wealthy business owners and their families. He previously served as vice chairman of investment banking at Goldman Sachs and headed up that firm’s Chicago office. Trott grew up in small-town Union, Mo., and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and an MBA at the University of Chicago in 1981 and 1982, respectively.
“There is a massive talent pool in our small towns and rural communities that has so much to offer to our colleges, to society and to future generations,” said Trott in a news release. “These smaller communities simply don’t have the resources to help show these students what is possible and help them get there. Collaborative partnerships … have a multiplier effect that can catalyze far greater change than any single institution or agency could make on its own.”
University of Portland
Jim Berchtold pledged $18 million and stipulated that $12 million of it go toward scholarships and other tuition assistance. He earmarked the remaining $6 million to support the university’s athletics programs, the Dundon-Berchtold Institute, and graduate programs in the Pamplin School of Business.
Berchtold is a retired senior vice president for U.S. Bank, where he worked for 31 years. He also served as chairman of Mt. Angel Telecommunications, which was founded in 1910 by his grandfather and later run by his father. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the university in 1963 and currently serves as a member of the university’s Board of Regents.
Seattle Art Museum
Jon and Kim Shirley pledged $10 million to endow their valuable collection of artwork by the prominent 20th-century artist Alexander Calder, which they have pledged to give to the museum upon Jon Shirley’s death. On top of the endowment, the couple plan to give the museum $250,000 to $500,00 a year to back events, programs, and research related to Calder’s influence on contemporary and modern art.
The Shirleys have agreed to lend the collection to the museum for an exhibition in November that will feature all 48 works from their collection and a following exhibit next year that will showcase Calder’s works alongside those of artists whom he influenced.
Jon Shirley retired as president and chief operating officer of Microsoft in 1990 and from its board of directors in 2008. He started his career as a store manager at the electronic retailer Radio Shack and later took on a leadership role when the Tandy Corporation bought Radio Shack in 1963. He eventually led the company’s computer division and worked closely with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to develop products that used Microsoft’s software. Gates then recruited Shirley to join Microsoft in the early 1980s.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
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