Thanks a Million 1999
From Houston hooperstar Charles Barkley to a passel of preppie Dallasites, The mantra of last year’s top philanthropists was: Be true to your school.
The booming Texas economy and the burgeoning ranks of Big Rich inspired a massive show of generosity in 1999, with major gifts totaling more than $340 million. Many were directed to the arts, like the new performing arts center planned for Austin; some went to health organizations like Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston. But overwhelmingly, the beneficiaries of this pre-Y2K largesse were schools—and not just universities. In the midst of a major capital campaign, St. Mark’s School of Texas in Dallas corralled more than $20 million, mostly from alumni and their parents. Talk about your class acts.
The criteria for inclusion in our roundup of the year’s top philanthropists remain the same:
• We list only gifts of at least $1 million made between January 1 and December 31.
• We don’t count corporate gifts, so we can’t recognize the good works of the SBC Foundation, the charitable arm of San Antonio’s SBC Communications, which was named the nation’s sixth-most-generous corporate foundation by Worth.
• We don’t count gifts in which the giver’s identity wasn’t revealed—and there were many in 1999, from $14.5 million to endow scholarships at Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, to $2 million to improve the design of a bridge that will be built in Dallas. (More than $3 million of St. Mark’s total was given anonymously.)
• We list only givers whose primary residence is in Texas.
• Finally, we include only living givers. Deceased donors like Sally C. Harrington Jackson of Dallas, whose estate bequeathed $10 million to Juliette Fowler Homes, don’t make the cut. Of course, we’re grateful just the same.
For convenience, we have broken down the list of philanthropists by size of donation, as follows: More than $10 million | More than $1 million | $1 million
The booming Texas economy and the burgeoning ranks of Big Rich inspired a massive show of generosity in 1999, with major gifts totaling more than $340 million. Many were directed to the arts, like the new performing arts center planned for Austin; some went to health organizations like Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston. But overwhelmingly, the beneficiaries of this pre-Y2K largesse were schools—and not just universities. In the midst of a major capital campaign, St. Mark’s School of Texas in Dallas corralled more than $20 million, mostly from alumni and their parents. Talk about your class acts.
The criteria for inclusion in our roundup of the year’s top philanthropists remain the same:
• We list only gifts of at least $1 million made between January 1 and December 31.
• We don’t count corporate gifts, so we can’t recognize the good works of the SBC Foundation, the charitable arm of San Antonio’s SBC Communications, which was named the nation’s sixth-most-generous corporate foundation by Worth.
• We don’t count gifts in which the giver’s identity wasn’t revealed—and there were many in 1999, from $14.5 million to endow scholarships at Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, to $2 million to improve the design of a bridge that will be built in Dallas. (More than $3 million of St. Mark’s total was given anonymously.)
• We list only givers whose primary residence is in Texas.
• Finally, we include only living givers. Deceased donors like Sally C. Harrington Jackson of Dallas, whose estate bequeathed $10 million to Juliette Fowler Homes, don’t make the cut. Of course, we’re grateful just the same.
For convenience, we have broken down the list of philanthropists by size of donation, as follows: More than $10 million | More than $1 million | $1 million
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