Eyes on the future

In 2021, a year marked by continuing pandemic uncertainty and overloaded health care systems, philanthropists and corporations gave generously, supporting construction and research projects at Virginia universities and hospitals.

Following 2020, a year that saw record-breaking donations to Hampton, Norfolk State and Virginia State universities by billionaire MacKenzie Scott, 2021 saw similarly generous gifts to other Virginia higher education institutions. Topping the list was a $75 million donation to Hollins University in December 2021. An anonymous alumna pledged the amount — believed to be the largest-ever private donation to a women’s college — to support scholarships for undergraduates in financial need.

In September 2021, the University of Virginia received $50 million from Tessa Ader, a prominent Charlottesville-area philanthropist who serves on the Fralin Museum of Art advisory board. The donation will support the establishment of a performing arts center with a 1,100-seat concert hall, a 150-seat recital hall and practice space. 

Norris E. Mitchell, a 1958 Virginia Tech graduate, and his wife, Wendy, committed $35 million to Tech, the largest single-donor gift made by an alumnus. The Mitchells’ gift, announced in December 2021, will go toward replacing Randolph Hall, a 60-year-old building used by the engineering college, and will provide support for programs and activities housed within the new building. Their gift satisfies the university’s funding obligation to the
$248 million project.

Corporations gave generously to the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus under construction in Alexandria. The Boeing Co. gave the largest corporate donation ever to Virginia Tech in May 2021, committing $50 million to foster diversity at the campus. Northrop Grumman Corp. also pledged $12.5 million in November 2021 to help fund the Center of Quantum Architecture and Software Development.

Roanoke College received a record-breaking $15 million cash gift in November 2021 from alumnus Shaun McConnon, former CEO of Massachusetts-based cybersecurity company BitSight Technologies. The gift will allow the university to build a new science center to house its psychology, biology and environmental studies majors, as well as most of the college’s student research.

Donations also flowed to health care, benefiting construction and research projects.

William Goodwin Jr. and his wife, Alice, announced in March 2021 that they were donating $250 million to kickstart a national cancer research foundation called Break Through Cancer. The cause is personal for the couple, who lost their son, Hunter, to cancer in January 2020. Half of the funding will come from his estate. Bill Goodwin, the retired chairman and president of Richmond-based Riverstone Group LLC, said then that medical research tends to be territorial, and that intellectual property “is protected like it’s in a vault” — but the foundation seeks to foster collaboration among five cancer research institutes.

Also providing support for cancer research, Apex Systems co-founder Win Sheridan gave $1 million to Inova Health System in September 2021 to endow the directorship of the Inova Molecular Tumor Board at Inova Schar Cancer Institute. Founded in 2016, the board helps match patients with rare or recurring advanced cancers with personalized treatments.

Private and corporate donors contributed to hospital expansions and renovation projects as well. Longtime donor Lola C. Reinsch, CEO of Arlington-based E.G. Reinsch Cos., donated $5 million in July 2021 to Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington to fund a new seven-story outpatient pavilion and parking area. In Richmond, the Estes family of Estes Express Lines committed $1.85 million toward construction of the Wonder Tower at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU in January 2021. And in October 2021, Chesapeake Bank pledged $100,000 to assist Bon Secours Rappahannock General Hospital with a $15 million renovation and expansion of its emergency room.