$50 Million Gift Launches New Women’s Health Program

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

NYU Langone Health

One of New York’s biggest health-care providers is launching a new women’s health effort, thanks to two big gifts from three wealthy financiers. Roberto and Allison Mignone gave $50 million through their Allison and Roberto Mignone Family Foundation to establish the Mignone Women’s Health Collaborative, which will bring together specialists in preventive care, pregnancy support, midlife health, and fibroid care, among other areas of women’s health.

In addition, the Miami financier Kenneth Griffin gave $10 million through his Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund to establish the Griffin Healthspan and Vitality Center, which will be housed within the Mignone Women’s Health Collaborative. The Griffin Center will offer patient programs focused on women’s overall well-being, longevity, and quality of life.

Roberto Mignone founded and leads Bridger Management, an investment management firm in New York. Prior to founding the firm in 2000, he co-founded and served as a partner of Blue Ridge Capital, an investment firm that focused on health care, technology, media, telecommunications, and financial services investing. Allison Mignone is a former managing director of Lone Pine Capital, a Greenwich, Conn., hedge fund.

Griffin is the billionaire founder of Citadel Investment Group, a hedge fund he started in Chicago in 1990; he moved the firm to Miami several years ago. Griffin is a serial donor of multimillion-dollar gifts. He primarily gives to higher education, medical centers, and cultural groups. He appeared on the Chronicle‘s 2014 Philanthropy 50 list for a $150 million donation he gave to Harvard University that year.

Kintura

Florence Phillips left $24 million to endow financial aid for some residents of Well-Spring, a retirement and assisted living center where Phillips had lived since 1993. Kintura is the nonprofit organization that owns and operates Well-Spring. The bequest will help Well-Spring residents who have outlived their assets by providing for their care until the end of their life. Phillips was an attorney. She died last year at 100.

Indiana University Health

John and Sarah Lechleiter and Deborah and Randall Tobias together pledged a total of $20 million, $10 million from each couple, to establish the Institute for Clinical Innovation, which will advance efforts by the health-care system and the university’s School of Medicine to expand patient participation in clinical trials throughout Indiana. Indiana University Health will match the gift.

John Lechleiter retired as president and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company in 2016. He joined the pharmaceutical giant in 1979 as a senior organic chemist in the chemical process and research development division and later held roles in product development, project management regulatory affairs, and pharmaceutical operations. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Lilly Endowment. Sarah Lechleiter co-founded and is a former chair for United Way of Central Indiana’s Women United committee, which promotes early childhood education and gender equity.

Deborah Tobias is a retired technology executive. She held posts at Infotron Systems Corporation, StrataCom, Cisco Systems, and Juniper Networks, where she was based in London as Juniper’s director of European sales operations. She retired from Juniper in 2001. She taught high school English earlier in her career.

Randall Tobias is a former president and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company and previously served as chairman and CEO of AT&T Communications. He was nominated in 2003 by President George W. Bush to be the founding U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator with the rank of ambassador. In that role, he established and led the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, now known as PEPFAR, which aimed to stanch the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. He also served as the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID.

Kansas City University

Paul Dybedal and Mary Louise Dybedal left more than $20.8 million to advance osteopathic medical education, research, behavioral healthcare, and scholarships. The bequest will be used to expand the Dybedal Center for Research on the Kansas City campus and establish state-of-the-art laboratory facilities on the Joplin campus, create the Paul W. Dybedal, DO, Endowed Chair of Psychiatry, and increase the Mary L. Dybedal Scholarship Fund.

Paul Dybedal was a psychiatrist who practiced inpatient and forensic psychiatry at Napa State Hospital, in California. He earned a degree from the university’s College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1954 and served as a U.S. Army Reserves medical officer. He served on the university’s Board of Trustees for more than 36 years and died in 2023. Mary Louise Dybedal worked as a computer programmer at IBM. She died in 2017.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

John and Fran Edwardson pledged $12 million to support the Civic Scholars Program, which will be renamed for the Edwardsons. Some of the donation will match gifts from other donors. The scholarship program offers full-tuition scholarships for Booth evening and weekend MBA students who are planning careers in the public or nonprofit sectors.

John Edwardson is a private investor and a retired chairman and CEO of CDW Corporation, an information technology company in Vernon Hills, Ill. He previously served in senior executive positions at Northwest Airlines, United Airlines, and Ameritech. He earned an MBA at the Booth School in 1972.

Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California

Rex and Carrol Parris gave $10 million to establish the USC Longevity Research Accelerator, which will bring together experts from engineering, stem cell research, and gerontology to uncover predictive biomarkers of aging, and develop early treatments for age-related conditions like osteoarthritis, neurodegenerative disorders, and cardiovascular disease.

The couple founded Parris Law Firm in Lancaster, Calif., in 1985. Rex Parris is the firm’s lead personal-injury attorney and Carol Parris is the firm’s CEO. Rex Parris has served as mayor of Lancaster, Calif., since 2008 and is chairman of CarthroniX, a biotechnology firm founded by Denis Evseenko, a physician and professor of orthopedic surgery and regenerative medicine at the Keck School. Evseenko will lead the Longevity Accelerator.

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

The Lilly Endowment is a financial supporter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.