Don’t ask, don’t tell — charitable contribution style

Charities, especially colleges, are getting large contributions conditioned on the charity promising not to ascertain the identity of the donors.

Here are some details from Michael J. Crumb, Mystery donors give over $45M to 9 universities, Yahoo! News, April 16, 2009:

The gifts ranged from $8 million at Purdue to $1.5 million donated to the University of North Carolina at Asheville. The University of Iowa received $7 million; the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Maryland University College got $6 million each; the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was given $5.5 million; and Penn State-Harrisburg received $3 million.

It’s not clear whether the gifts came from an individual, an organization or a group of people with similar interests. In every case, the donor or donors dealt with the universities through lawyers or other middlemen.