Unknown Donor of $350 Million Revealed

On Friday, Cornell University announced that it received a $350 million gift to help build the school’s new high-tech graduate school on Roosevelt Island, but the identity of the donor was unknown. Three days later, on Monday, officials at Atlantic Philanthropies confirmed that Elizabeth, N.J. native and Cornell graduate Charles F. Feeney was the unknown donor.

The $350 donation is the largest in the university’s history. Mr. Feeney stated in a press release that the new graduate school “is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create economic and educational opportunity on a transformational scale.”

See Richard Perez-Pena, Cornell Alumnus is Behind $350 Million Gift to Build Science School in City, The New York Times, Dec. 19, 2011.