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The 2006 Virginia 100 -
The art of giving
READER
RESOURCES
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Multimedia:
• AUDIO: Rajendra
Singh on wealth |
VIRGINIA
100 LISTS
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Virginia Business
June 2006
Virginia’s reputation for philanthropy is gaining
national recognition. Donations from several business
leaders have earned spots on national lists of the country’s
top donors.
From 2001-2005, Landmark Communications
founder Frank Batten Sr. and his wife, Jane, of Virginia
Beach gave
away or pledged $233 million, ranking them 30th on
BusinessWeek’s
2005 list of 50 Most Generous Philanthropists. At No.
38 is the Richmond chairman of CCA Industries, William
Goodwin Jr., and his wife, Alice, who the magazine
says contributed $187 million during the same period.
Robert H. Smith, a Northern Virginia real estate executive,
and Roger W. Sant, co-founder of AES Corp. in Arlington,
made the 2005 list of most generous donors compiled by
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, with Smith ranking 34th
and Sant 57th.
The following list highlights some of their donations
and gifts from others over the past year:
• $49 million: Roger and Victoria
Sant have recently donated to four projects: $20 million
for the preservation
of the Amazon rain forest through their Summit Foundation;
$9 million for a new building named in their honor
at The Phillips Collection art museum in Washington; $10
million to the National Symphony Orchestra; and $10
million to the Smithsonian Institution, also in Washington.
• $32.5 million: Alice and Bill
Goodwin of Richmond as a challenge gift to the Virginia
Commonwealth University
School of Engineering. Alice Goodwin graduated
from VCU with a medical-technology degree.
• $30.2 million: Robert H. Smith
of Crystal City to his alma mater, the University of
Maryland College
Park. The money will support academic programs at the business
school, a performing arts center and a program
that studies Israel.
• $10 million: Pledged by former
Virginia Tech fraternity brothers A. Ross Myers of Pennsylvania
and John
R. Lawson II of Newport News to start the proposed Myers-Lawson
School of Construction at Virginia Tech. Both
are Virginia Tech graduates and CEOs of construction firms.
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