A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Kathleen and John Schreiber gave $25 million to establish the Schreiber Family Center for Early Childhood Health and Wellness, which will provide a range of developmental programs aimed at infants and children up to age 5. Programs will connect expectant parents to home-visiting services, doulas, and care coordination. The center will also include efforts to ensure new parents have access to quality health care, social services, and the tools to keep their babies safe at home, in cars, and while they are sleeping. Other programs will focus on building children’s resiliency and social-emotional well-being, and on training for the early-childhood workforce.
Some of the gift will also support research to uncover new ways to support newborns and very young children affected by social and other inequities. The gift includes funds for immediate use and also for endowment, so that programs can be maintained.
John Schreiber retired in 2015 as a partner and co-founder of Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, where he oversaw the New York investment firm’s real-estate holdings since 1992. He leads Centaur Capital Partners, the couple’s family investment office.
Denison University
Thekla and Don Shackelford gave $21 million to endow scholarships to support Columbus City Schools students who are accepted to attend Denison. The couple have supported numerous scholarships programs at the university over the years.
Don Shackelford retired in 2015 as chairman of Diamond Hill Investments, a mutual-fund company in Columbus, Ohio. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Denison in 1954 and served on the university’s Board of Trustees for more than 36 years.
Thekla Shackelford founded School Selection Counseling in 1980 to assist students and parents in choosing colleges and preparatory schools, and I Know I Can, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce dropout rates and increase the number of students going to college from Columbus City Schools. She graduated from Denison in 1956 and started her career as a middle-school teacher and later worked as an admissions counselor. She also previously served as director of development for the Buckeye Ranch, a nonprofit in Grove City, Ohio, that serves youths with emotional and behavioral issues.
Intermountain Health
Ryan and Ashley Smith gave $20 million through their Ryan and Ashley Smith Foundation to support pediatric-cancer research and treatment at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, in Salt Lake City, and to endow a chair in pediatric cancer research at the hospital.
The gift will also be used to establish 5 For The Fight family centers where the families of children receiving treatment for cancer and blood disorders at Primary Children’s Hospital can connect and support each other. The centers are named for the nonprofit the couple started to raise money for cancer research.
The couple own the Utah Jazz, a professional basketball team. Ryan Smith is a co-founder of Qualtrics, a company in Seattle and Provo, Utah, that runs a software platform that lets companies collect and analyze customer data. He started the company in 2002 with his father, Scott, and his brother, Jared, and Stuart Orgill, a software developer and researcher.
National Gallery of Art
Roger Sant and his family gave $10 million to establish the Victoria P. Sant Fund for Women Artists, which is named for his late wife and will support the museum’s efforts to acquire more works by women artists.
Victoria Sant, who died in 2018, was the first woman president of the museum and served on its Board of Trustees for 15 years. Roger Sant is a co-founder and chairman emeritus of the AES Corporation, an international electric-power company, in Arlington, Va.
Anacostia Community Museum
Roger Ferguson and Annette Nazareth gave $5 million to establish an endowment that will support the museum’s director position, which will be named the Roger Ferguson and Annette Nazareth Director of the Anacostia Community Museum. The museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington.
Ferguson is an economist who served as vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System from 1999 to 2006 and led the financial-services corporation TIAA from 2008 to 2021. Earlier in his career, he served as head of financial services for Swiss Re, an international reinsurance company, and was a partner at McKinsey & Company. He began his career as an attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell. He currently serves on the Smithsonian Board of Regents.
Nazareth is a lawyer who serves as senior counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell. She served as a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2005 to 2008.
Yeshiva University
Anita Zucker gave $5 million to establish the Anita Zucker Program for Jewish Early Childhood Educators, which will provide scholarships for qualified Yeshiva University undergraduate students who want to pursue careers in Jewish early-childhood education.
The money will also support the creation of a peer-reviewed annual Journal of Early Childhood Jewish Education and graduate research fellowships, and it will pay for students to attend the NAEYC Annual Conference.
Zucker is a billionaire businesswoman who co-founded the holding company Intertech Group in 1982 with her late husband, Jerry Zucker. She also owns the Carolina Ice Palace and was a part owner of the South Carolina Stingrays, an ice-hockey team. She sold her stake in the team in 2018.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.