Major Gifts

St. Edward's University has received a $13 million donation, the largest in the school's history, for a new library and a $1.7 million donation to renovate the alumni gym.

The private Catholic school announced the gifts Thursday.

The library donation came from Pat and Bill Munday of Austin, Texas. Pat Munday has taken classes at St. Edward's and has been a member of the school's Board of Trustees since 2005. Bill Munday operates several car dealerships in the Austin area.

Jeff Bezos, the self-made billionaire who started Amazon.com out of a Bellevue, Wash., garage and built it into the world's dominant online retailer over the past two decades, has given $10 million to the Museum of History & Industry to establish a "Center for Innovation" at MOHAI's new location on South Lake Union.

The gift is the largest in the museum's 59-year history. It also is the most visible sign yet of personal giving by Bezos, who is better known for spending money on space exploration and other business investments than on local philanthropic activities.

The University of North Texas has received the largest gift in its history with a $22 million pledge from a former student from Thailand. The Denton, Texas school said Monday the gift from Charn Uswochoke is intended for professorships, academic chairs, scholarships and programs for the school's music, engineering and business colleges.

Sanford Weill, the former Citigroup chairman, and his wife, Joan, have pledged $10-million to the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, to expand its facilities for treating children with cancer and Palestinian patients, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports.

Also, a Saudi oil executive has donated $10-million to the Mayo Clinic to support reconstructive surgery for victims of war, trauma, and illness, the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on measures to improve their circumstances.

To pay for the endeavor, the city is relying on an unusual source: Bloomberg himself, who intends to use his personal fortune to cover about a quarter of the cost. A $30 million contribution from Bloomberg’s foundation would be matched by fellow billionaire, George Soros, a hedge fund manager, with the remainder being paid for by the city.

At a time when for-profit theaters may be feeling the pressure to cave in to the economic pinch and roll out the revivals, nonprofit San Francisco-based American Conservatory Theater is still taking chances.

The Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania announces the launching of a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary center focused on discovering novel treatments for orphan diseases. The Center will bring together all necessary approaches to attacking and treating orphan diseases: establishing dedicated research support facilities, translating findings into therapies, fostering targeted grant awards, and educating physicians and researchers.

Formation of the new Penn Center for Orphan Disease Research and Therapy was catalyzed by a $10 million gift from an anonymous donor.

Hamilton College has received its largest gift ever — from a foundation headed by the inventor of an anti-cancer drug who planned to be a writer when he came to the college in 1942.

"I went to Hamilton to major in English,” recalled Edward Taylor, who is giving $16 million to the college through his SunUp Foundation. “I was required to take a science course in my first semester. I flipped a coin and it turned out to be chemistry instead of biology. I owe my lifelong fascination with chemistry to Hamilton.”

San Diego developer and philanthropist Conrad Prebys has given Scripps Health $45 million for its new cardiovascular institute in La Jolla, Calif., making the donation the largest in Scripps’ history and the biggest Prebys has given any organization.

Scripps officials plan to announce that the $456 million center being built at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla will be named the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute.

Warren Buffett, who is urging fellow billionaires to commit most of their wealth to philanthropy, gave away stock valued at about $1.5 billion in his annual gift to the foundation established by Bill Gates.

The donation of 19.3 million Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) Class B shares was made Thursday, according to a filing.

Buffett has pledged the majority of his holdings to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and to charities run by his three children and one named after his first wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, who died in 2004.