Cleveland Browns Owners Give U. of Tennessee $130 Million 

Dee and James (Jimmy) Haslam gave $130 million to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville primarily to support a range of efforts at the Haslam College of Business. The couple earmarked $100 million of their donation so the business school can hire more faculty and to support graduate student scholarships, an undergraduate honors program, and other efforts. The remaining $30 million will pay for new faculty across multiple academic departments.

The couple are Knoxville natives and have given extensively to the university, their alma mater, over the years. The business school is named for Jimmy Haslam’s father, James Haslam II, who gave the university $50 million in 2014 to support the school.

A television producer, Dee Haslam graduated from the university in 1986 and served as CEO of RIVR Media Companies. Jimmy Haslam graduated from the university in 1976 and has spent most of his career working for his family’s Pilot Company, an energy company best known for its gas stations and convenience stores. He served as CEO of the company from 1996 to 2020, and as chairman from 2020 to 2023.

Together, the couple lead the Haslam Sports Group, whose portfolio includes ownership of the Cleveland Browns, a controlling interest in the Milwaukee Bucks, and investment roles in other sports teams and the WNBA. They have appeared, along with other family members, on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors twice over the last 12 years.

Other recent big gifts include:

Drexel University

Lorie and Nick Howley pledged $112.6 million to establish the Nick Howley College of Engineering and Computing and to renovate a campus building to house the college. The new Howley Family Immersive Learning Center will include teaching labs, a robotics facility, a flight simulator, a jet engine lab, and other industrial and scientific research labs. The couple are giving the gift through their Howley Foundation. 

Nick Howley founded TransDigm Group, a Cleveland company that designs and manufactures aerospace components and systems, and Perimeter Solutions, an industrial products provider. He graduated from Drexel in 1975. Lori Howley is a horticulturalist who for 15 years developed and taught postsecondary and continuing-education courses at Longwood Gardens, a botanical garden in Kennett Square, Pa.

Amherst College

Molly and William (Bill) Ford gave $50 million to build a new student center that will be named for the Fords, who have a long history at the college. Bill Ford graduated from Amherst in 1983; his brother, Mark, in 1985; and his son, Billy, with the class of 2013, among other relatives who are Amherst alumni. Bill Ford is chairman and CEO of General Atlantic, an international investment firm in New York.

University of Virginia

David and Kathleen LaCross gave $43.4 million to the School of Education and Human Development to support a new early learning center for Charlottesville-area children. 

David LaCross founded Risk Management Technology, which was acquired by Fair, Isaac & Co., a credit-scoring firm, in 1997. He also co-founded Morgan Territory Brewing, a California microbrewery. The couple are UVA alumni. He earned a bachelor’s degree from UVA in 1974 and an M.B.A. from its Darden School in 1978. Kathleen LaCross earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the university in 1976. The couple are longtime UVA donors and have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors twice for large gifts they gave the university.

Milken Community School

Silicon Valley billionaire Jan Koum gave $36 million through his Koum Family Foundation to expand the Los Angeles private Jewish school’s campus onto a newly acquired 22-acre site  formerly owned by the American Jewish University. The complex will be renamed the Jan Koum Campus of Milken Community School. 

A former Yahoo engineer, Koum’s now roughly $17 billion fortune resulted from his 2014 sale of WhatsApp to Facebook. He appeared on the Philanthropy 50 a year later when he poured nearly $556 million into a donor-advised fund.

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