Largest Gifts by Individuals in 1999
December 31, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Compiled by C. QUINN HANCHETTE
| Rank | Donors | Amount | Purpose |
| 1. | Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, and his wife, Melinda | Three gifts totaling $16-billion | To endow the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [details] |
| 2. | James H. Clark, founder of Netscape | $150-million | To construct a biomedical-engineering center at Stanford University [details] |
| 3. | Philip Forbes Holton, former chief executive officer at Inland Container Corporation, and his wife, Ruth Clark | $128.5-million bequest | For scholarships at DePauw University [details] |
| 4. | Anonymous | $100-million | To renovate Cornell University’s West Campus [details] |
| 4. (tie) |
Eli Broad, chairman of SunAmerica | $100-million | To the Broad Foundation for a program to strengthen urban school districts [details] |
| 4. (tie) |
William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard | $100-million | To establish the Flora Family Foundation [details] |
| 4. (tie) |
Kenan E. Sahin, founder of the software company Kenan Systems | $100-million | For the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s capital campaign [details] |
| 8. | Raymond Baker, a former director of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, and his wife, Mary | $80-million bequest | For Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture [details] |
| 9. | Paul Mellon, philanthropist | $75-million bequest | To the National Gallery of Art [details] |
| 9. (tie) |
Paul Mellon, philanthropist | $75-million bequest | To the Yale Center of British Art [details] |
| 11. | Adrian French, musician | $70-million | For cancer research at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine [details] |
| 12. | Margaret Adger Pitts, and her father, William I. H. Pitts, an investor in the Coca-Cola Company | $65-million bequest | To Emory University [details] |
| 13. | Margaret Adger Pitts, and her father, William I.H. Pitts, an investor in the Coca-Cola Company | $63.5-million bequest | To Young Harris College [details] |
| 14. | Rea A. Axline, who patented the process for bonding metal alloys to metal surfaces, and his wife, Lela (Jackie) | $60-million bequest | For scholarships at the California Institute of Technology [details] |
| 14. (tie) | Frank Batten, Sr., retired chairman of Landmark Communications | $60-million | To the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration [details] |
| 14. (tie) |
Steven Ferencz Udvar-Hazy, president of International Lease Finance Corporation | $60-million | For the National Air and Space Museum’s Dulles Center [details] |
Note: This list does not include gifts of art.
