Mystery Donor Strikes Again
May 4, 2009 at 1:49 pm Tina Hay Leave a comment
Penn State Harrisburg, one of the beneficiaries of the mystery donor
Last Friday, the University of Alaska Anchorage became the latest school to announce a mega-gift from a donor whose main wish is that no one—not even the university—find out who he or she is.
NPR carried a piece on this growing mystery this morning. The tally of colleges getting these huge, anonymous gifts is now up to 15, and so far they all have one thing in common: Each school is headed by a woman.
Whoever is giving this money has so far doled out $81.5 million; the gifts have ranged in size from $1 million to $10 million. Penn State Harrisburg—whose chancellor is Madlyn Hanes—received $3 million last month.
In the NPR piece, Melissa Berman, CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, speculates that the donor is a woman, probably an older one: “The fact that this is so completely anonymous suggests someone who lived in a period of time in which for a woman to be so public about her wealth was not the standard way of operating.”
She adds, “I think we will eventually know who this person is.”
Tina Hay, editor
Entry filed under: Penn State Harrisburg, Penn State in the news, Undergraduate education. Tags: anonymous donors, anonymous gifts, Madlyn Hanes, Melissa Berman, mystery donor, NPR, philanthropy, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, University of Alaska Anchorage.
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