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Anonymous cash
TOKYO A mystery gripping Japan over anonymous cash gifts has
taken a new twist. For those who want the next batch of giveaways, the
place to look is in their mailboxes -- or even right at their feet.
Residents of a Tokyo apartment building are baffled after a total of
1.81 million yen (15,210 dollars) was found in 18 mailboxes by Saturday,
a police spokesman said.
"The money was in identical plain envelopes, which were unsealed and
carried no names or messages," the spokesman told AFP.
But residents became "spooked" rather than pleased with the anonymous
gifts -- and were too upright to pocket the money secretly.
"Some people initially suspected they were fake bills. When they
realised the bills were real, they reported them to us," the spokesman
said.
The predominantly middle-class apartment building in Tokyo is not alone.
An envelope with one million yen was left in the mailbox of a
31-year-old woman in the western city of Kobe on Wednesday.
Police admit they have no idea who is leaving the cash -- whether a few
people are behind the bizarre giveaways or if Japan is witnessing a
craze of copycat benevolence.
Since June, dozens of city halls and other public buildings across the
country have reported finding neatly packaged envelopes full of cash in
men's restrooms.
The bathroom money has come with identical letters asking people to do
good deeds -- leading to speculation that the benefactor may be a public
servant trying to cheer up his profession or perhaps a member of a
new-age religion.
Japanese cash dropoffs are not always so neat.
On Wednesday, bills worth 960,000 yen were inexplicably seen "falling"
in front of a convenience store.
"We can just say the money came from the skies," a puzzled police
official said. "There were other passers-by outside and customers in the
store but the incident caused no confusion," he said.
"People thought it was too eerie to touch."
A man who contacted police saying his daughter had dropped the money had
his claim rejected as groundless, the official said.
The largest single dropoff so far was in the ancient city of Kyoto on
July 23, astonishing a 67-year-old woman who found an envelope
containing 10 million yen of stacked bills in her mailbox.
But mystery money does not always reach police intact.
A woman walking on a bridge over Tokyo's Sumida River told officers that
she saw bills falling at her feet from an elevated expressway above on
July 6.
She believes 30 to 40 notes fell but police managed to collect only six
notes worth 46,000 yen by the time they arrived.
"Some people were picking the money up on the bridge," the Tokyo Shimbun
quoted the woman as saying.
No one can say if more people have collected money and not told police.
Media tallies suggest more than four million yen, including some found
last year, has been found in the public restrooms.
Dutifully, police are holding most of the money in case the rightful
owner eventually decides to reveal their identity.
Embracing the Arts
Harwood Museum Receives Anonymous Million
UNM's Harwood Museum of Art in Taos has received an anonymous cash gift
of $1 million, the single largest cash gift ever made to the museum,
reports Robert M. Ellis, director of the museum.
The gift, administered by the UNM Foundation, will be placed in the
museum's endowment fund to support in perpetuity a portion of the
museum's operations, as well as for educational programs, publications,
exhibitions and purchases.
"This gift will do much to strengthen the Harwood's stature in the arts
community locally, nationally and internationally," says UNM President
William C. Gordon. "It will allow the Harwood to be an even more
valuable resource to all students of art created in the Southwest as
well as those who appreciate the opportunity to personally view the
works of a variety of famous and noteworthy artists."
"We are extremely grateful for this anonymous gift," echoes Ellis. ³It
confirms the support of the donor for what the Harwood has become and
can yet become. The gift validates what many have long believed: the
Harwood is the leading art museum in northern New Mexico."
"It is quite unusual for donors to give gifts of this magnitude and then
want to remain anonymous," says Gale Doyel, director of donor relations
for the Foundation, while noting that she believes this is the largest
anonymous cash gift the Foundation has received for any purpose.
Established 77 years ago, the Harwood Museum of Art, located about two
blocks southwest of the Taos Plaza at 238 Ledoux Street, is New Mexico's
second oldest museum. Renowned Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem, who is
credited with creating the University's distinctive "Pueblo Revival"
style of architecture, designed much of the historic adobe home that
houses the museum. The museum receives some 17,000 visitors annually
from all over the United States and Europe.
In 1997, the museum completed a $1.5 million major renovation project,
involving more than 7,000 square feet of renovated space and the
addition of some 4,000 square feet of new construction. The Harwood
dedicated the Agnes Martin Gallery to highlight the museum's.
Agnes Martin is widely recognized as one of the nation's finest living
artists -- a fact noted by the Harwood in 1947 when Martin, a graduate
student at UNM¹s Field School of Art, exhibited her work at the museum.
In 1997, she gifted seven of her paintings to the Harwood where their
permanent home is in the special, octagonal-shaped gallery named for
her.
The Harwood preserves a unique record of both northern New Mexico's
multicultural heritage and Taos' role in the development of seminal
American art. Since 1923, the Harwood has been home to paintings by the
early Taos Society of Artists, works by Marsden Hartley, John Marin and
Rebecca James and the Taos Moderns, including Andrew Dasburg.
Contemporary artists in the collection include Larry Bell, Ken Price,
Larry Calcagno, Beatrice Mandelman and Vija Celmins. The Harwood also
holds a significant collection of early Hispanic tinwork, retablos and
bultos (three-dimensional carvings of saints), many of which were gifted
by Mabel Dodge Lujan, the New York arts patron who moved to Taos and
introduced Ansel Adams, D.H. Lawrence, Edward Weston, Georgia O'Keeffe
and many others to the New Mexico landscape.
In June 1999 the Harwood began an endowment drive with a $1.4 million
goal. Prior to the anonymous gift, the Harwood's efforts had raised
$1,075,000 toward this goal. The anonymous gift has dramatically lifted
the total to $2,075,000. The Harwood also has received support from
prestigious foundations, such as the McCune Foundation and the
O'Shaughnessy Foundation July 25,
2007
$5-Million Anonymous Gift: Strings Attached
Collecting private donations to pay for Florida International
University’s new medical school has been an ordeal from the start. And
this week it appears that the saga has taken another strange turn,
according to The Miami Herald.
The newspaper reported today that the public university’s foundation
board approved a deal with an anonymous donor without seeing a contract
and assumed lifetime liability on two insurance claims as a “special
condition” to receive the $5-million cash gift.
Modesto A. Maidique, the university’s president, said the only risk the
institution would assume was a $10,000 administrative fee.
Last December a donor backed out of giving the medical school a
$20-million naming gift over a dispute with Mr. Maidique. The donor
wanted to to defer payments for tax purposes.
Should foundation boards accept donations without seeing the details?
What risks do institutions assume in entering such deals?
Erin Strout | Posted on Wednesday July 25, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
1.
As Chair of the Florida International University Foundation, I am deeply
offended by a story that implies that members of the Foundation board
approved a gift without due diligence.
My fellow Foundation directors and I take our responsibility to the
University and the community very seriously and have full trust in the
recommendations we receive from President Modesto A. Maidique and his
professional staff. Further, I have been fully briefed and can
personally attest that our approval was warranted.
We have a potential large cash gift of $5 million ($10 million with
state matching funds) from a donor that does not want to be identified
at this time. At a time when a tuition increase has been vetoed by Gov.
Charlie Crist and the State is asking universities to cut their budgets
by as much as 10 percent, we are not in a position to jeopardize a
private donation by disrespecting the wishes of the donor. This article
threatens to do just that.
Privacy, of course, is a donor’s right. In order to preserve that
privacy, President Maidique and his staff have worked diligently to make
sure that FIU and the Foundation enter into an agreement that is legal
and beneficial to the University community. As President Maidique
explained during the meeting, the Foundation has obtained an opinion
from outside counsel which clearly states that there is no exposure to
the Foundation on the assumed, insured liabilities other than the costs
of administering the claims.
I find it very troublesome that the media does not respect the
sensitivity of this situation and uses it as an opportunity to cast
doubt on the work ethic of a committed staff and a volunteer board. I
certainly hope that once this gift to the FIU College of Medicine
becomes a reality, the media will devote at least the same amount of
time, effort and space to exploring all the benefits it will bring to
our community.
Sincerely, S. Lawrence Kahn Chairman of the FIU Foundation Board of
Directors Anonymous Gifts From
Individuals, 1997$10 million and above.
Compiled by Ann Castle
Posted Sunday, Feb. 22, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET
Introduction
The 1997 Slate 60
The 60 largest American charitable contributions of 1997.
Honorable Mentions
211 other known gifts of more than $1 million in 1997
Anonymous Gifts From Individuals, 1997
$10 million and above.
Early 1998 Gifts
1. $30 million to the UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS (Minn.) for the Graduate
School of Business from a Minneapolis/St. Paul-area family. The gift is
believed to be the largest ever given to a college or university in
Minnesota. The family boosted an earlier $10-million pledge, "because it
feels strongly that there never has been a greater need for management
education based on values and ethics." The gift will allow the school to
endow as many as 10 new professorships and to create a $2-million
scholarship fund that will assist minorities and students attending a
Spirituality of Management seminar at the university.
2. $27.4 million to the HOSPITAL SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS FOUNDATION
(Springfield, Ill.) to help pay for the new Women and Children's Center
at St. John's Hospital. The gift was from a donor who wished to remain
anonymous, said Sister Bernadine Gutowski, spiritual leader of the
Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in the United States.
"The donor required us to sign an agreement on the part of the hospital
to keep the donor's identity anonymous," she said. "But it's fair to say
the money came from someone who identified with our values and mission."
3. $25 million to the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS Southwestern Medical Center
from an anonymous couple as a dollar-for-dollar challenge to endow a
$50-million scholars program in medical research.
3. $25 million to MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE in Clinton for the "New Dawn"
capital campaign. The gift is unrestricted but must be matched by other
donors over the next three to five years.
5. $15 million to STEWARD SCHOOL (Henrico County, Va.) "Christmas in
September," said Jennifer Sgro, who works in the school's development
office. Whoever the donors may be, they have ushered in a new era at the
small school, said H. Gerald Quigg, a fund-raising consultant to the
school. The donors attached only three stipulations to the gift. First:
The school must stick to its goal of providing a high-quality
preparatory education. Second: One-third of the gift is to be earmarked
for a fine-arts center to be named in honor of Paul R. Cramer, the
school's headmaster for 19 years who retired in 1994. Last: One-third
must be used for the school's endowment.
6. $10 million to MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY (Milwaukee) from an alumnus and
his family for a new library that will be named after Father John Raynor,
the university president who died in November 1997. The amount was
proffered as a challenge gift, and the donor has required the university
to seek additional donations to match the original figure. The gift is
among the largest ever received by Marquette.
6. $10 million to CENTENARY COLLEGE (Shreveport, La.), for unrestricted
use. The college's trustees have voted to designate the gift as a
dollar-for-dollar matching fund to invite additional donations to the
capital campaign. "Thus we intend to transform this $10 million into at
least $20 million," Centenary College President Kenneth L. Schwab said.
6. $10 million in cash to MARY BALDWIN COLLEGE (Staunton, Va.) This is
the largest cash gift received by Mary Baldwin and among the largest
given to a women's college. This gift is unusual not only in its size
but also in its purpose, which is to fund several one-time projects.
Founded in 1842, Mary Baldwin is the oldest women's college affiliated
with the Presbyterian Church of the United States.
6. $10 million to MARS HILL COLLEGE (N.C.) for development of a school
of business and community science. The pledge is the largest single gift
in the college's history. The donors, one of whom has long-standing ties
to Mars Hill, based their decision to make the pledge primarily on the
quality of leadership now at the college. "We are deeply humbled by the
generosity of these wonderful people," said Chancellor Max Lennon.
Scholarships set precedent
Anonymous donor continues funding of honors scholars
send this article to a friend
By SUZANNE CHAMBERLAIN
Reporter Contributor
The Distinguished Honors Scholars Program will graduate its largest
group of honors scholars-23-this month, thanks to an anonymous donor
whose scholarship gifts are setting a precedent.
The anonymous donor, whose latest cash gift of $800,000 brings the total
the donor has given over the past six years to $5.6 million, is pleased
that UB alumni and friends are joining in the effort.
"I continue to be happy with the quality of students named as
Distinguished Honors Scholars, and am especially pleased that other
generous individuals recognize the value of supporting these top
students and have begun to make additional contributions," the donor
said.
This generosity, in turn, has helped to motivate gifts and pledges, such
as a $365,000 bequest commitment by '50 and '53 alumnus Burton
Greenstein and an anonymous $150,000 charitable remainder trust gift
from a 1949 UB graduate. In addition, UB Council Chair Jeremy M. Jacobs,
Sr. has designated a portion of his annual $100,000 gift to UB for
honors scholarships.
The late Eleanor Millonzi was an early supporter of the program,
creating the Robert I. and Eleanor V. Millonzi Distinguished Honors
Scholarship for the Creative and Performing Arts, now in its second
year. Two additional donors are looking to the future of Western New
York and are finalizing details that will specify their support for
Buffalo-area honors students who are committed to staying in this
region.
"We are immensely grateful to the anonymous donor for initial and
continued gifts and the additional support those gifts are engendering
because this program has done phenomenal things for the students," said
Josephine A. Capuana, administrative director for the University Honors
Program.
"It's enabled them to take their studies very seriously and not worry
about how to pay for their undergraduate education," Capuana noted. "It
also has afforded them wonderful opportunities for different research
experiences or study-abroad situations that they would not have had
without the Distinguished Honors Scholars Program."
While the donor remains anonymous, the donor's intentions are clear:
"The primary goal of renewing this gift is to support bright students
for whom college might not otherwise be affordable and to encourage
other donors to support this important priority."
Capuana said the strategy is working. "The greatest satisfaction for
me," she said, "is seeing the huge difference in the way these students
view their lives and their education, all made possible by the anonymous
donor."
Begun in 1995 with 10 students who graduated last year and an initial
$1.6 million dollar gift from the anonymous donor, the program has 23
graduating seniors, 18 juniors, 23 sophomores and 11 freshmen.
Capuana said most of the seniors plan to continue their education; six
will remain at UB in the professional schools, while others are
enrolling in graduate programs across the country. She said a few are
swapping classrooms for careers, with one headed for the National
Institutes of Health in biomedical research, another becoming an
engineer with General Electric and a third joining Proctor and Gamble as
a chemical engineer.
Capuana said 15-18 incoming freshmen will become the newest scholars to
join the UB Distinguished Honors Scholars Program in the fall.
The Economics of Gifts
One more day for Christmas shopping. To help you out, here is a bit on
the economics of gift-giving, stolen from my favorite economics
textbook. It is based on the signalling theory of Michael Spence:
Case Study
Gifts as Signals
A man is debating what to give his girlfriend for her birthday. "I
know," he says to himself, "I'll give her cash. After all, I don't know
her tastes as well as she does, and with cash, she can buy anything she
wants." But when he hands her the money, she is offended. Convinced he
doesn't really love her, she breaks off the relationship.
What's the economics behind this story?
In some ways, gift giving is a strange custom. As the man in our story
suggests, people typically know their own preferences better than others
do, so we might expect everyone to prefer cash to in-kind transfers. If
your employer substituted merchandise of his choosing for your paycheck,
you would likely object to the means of payment. But your reaction is
very different when someone who (you hope) loves you does the same
thing.
One interpretation of gift giving is that it reflects asymmetric
information and signaling. The man in our story has private information
that the girlfriend would like to know: Does he really love her?
Choosing a good gift for her is a signal of his love. Certainly, the act
of picking out a gift, rather than giving cash, has the right
characteristics to be a signal. It is costly (it takes time), and its
cost depends on private information (how much he loves her). If he
really loves her, choosing a good gift is easy because he is thinking
about her all the time. If he doesn't love her, finding the right gift
is more difficult. Thus, giving a gift that suits the girlfriend is one
way for him to convey the private information of his love for her.
Giving cash shows that he isn't even bothering to try.
The signaling theory of gift giving is consistent with another
observation: People care most about the custom when the strength of
affection is most in question. Thus, giving cash to a girlfriend or
boyfriend is usually a bad move. But when college students receive a
check from their parents, they are less often offended. The parents'
love is less likely to be in doubt, so the recipient probably won't
interpret the cash gift as a signal of lack of affection.
WMU anticipates another record year for private gifts
June 1, 2001
KALAMAZOO -- Western Michigan University is on course to duplicate the
one-year record total of $17.5 million in private gifts received the
previous year.
According to a report presented to the WMU Board of Trustees at its May
30 meeting, $16,474,538 in gifts was received during the first 10 months
of the 2000-01 fiscal year, which ends June 30. That is virtually
identical to the amount raised during the same period the previous
fiscal year.
With May and June gifts still to be reported, the university is within
$1.1 million of surpassing the one-year record total. The $17.5 million
record set in 1999-2000 exceeded the previous one-year record, set in
1995-96, by $5 million or 40 percent.
All gifts to Western Michigan University are received through the WMU
Foundation or the Paper Technology Foundation, which supports the
internationally known paper programs at WMU. For the first 10 months of
the 2000-01 fiscal year, the WMU Foundation reported current and
deferred cash gifts totaling $14,664,022 and non-cash gifts valued at
$1,296,768, for a total of 15,960,790. The Paper Technology Foundation
reported cash gifts of $395,224 and non-cash gifts valued at $118,504,
for a total of $513,748.
All of the larger gifts reported at the May 31 meeting of the trustees
were made anonymously. A gift of $360,000 was received to support the
jazz studies program in the School of Music, which also received $25,000
from anonymous donors for the Russell Brown Honors Quintet Scholarship.
The special collections endowment for the University Libraries received
slightly more than $1 million in the form of two gifts from an anonymous
donor. Two gifts totaling $558,571 were given to support the Center for
Integrated Design in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences,
which also received an anonymous contribution of $450,000 for equipment.
Also given anonymously were gifts of $47,665 to support a study
fellowship in the Medieval Institute, $31,053 for the New Issues Press
in the Department of English, $50,000 for the Southwest Michigan
Children's Trauma Association Center in the College of Health and Human
Services and $30,000 for scholarships in the Department of Foreign
Languages and Literatures.
In a related action at their May 30 meeting, the trustees approved minor
changes to the WMU Foundation bylaws regarding titles of officers and
committee structure.
SAN FRANCISCO - From the state that popularized purse puppies,
drive-thru dog washes and gourmet dog food delivery comes the latest in
canine convenience — a company that contracts out dogs by the day to
urbanites without the time or space to care for a pet full-time.
Marlena Cervantes, founder of FlexPetz, bristles when people refer to
her five-month-old business as a rent-a-pet service. She prefers the
term "shared pet ownership," explaining the concept is more akin to a
vacation time share or a gym membership than a trip to the video store.
"Our members are responsible in that they realize full-time ownership is
not an option for them and would be unfair to the dog," said Cervantes,
32, a behavioral therapist who got the idea while working with pets and
autistic children. "It prevents dogs from being adopted and then
returned to the shelter by people who realize it wasn't a good fit."
FlexPetz is currently available in Los Angeles and San Diego, where
Cervantes lives. She plans to open new locations in San Francisco next
month, New York in September and London by the end of the year.
For an annual fee of $99.95, a monthly payment of $49.95 and a per-visit
charge of $39.95 a day, (discounted to $24.95 Sunday through Thursday),
animal lovers who enroll in FlexPetz get to spend time with a
four-legged companion from Cervantes' 10-dog crew of Afghan hounds,
Labrador retrievers and Boston terriers.
The membership costs cover the expense of training and boarding the
dogs, home or office delivery, collar-sized global positioning devices,
veterinary bills and liability insurance. It also pays for the "care
kits" — comprised of leashes, bowls, beds and pre-measured food — that
accompany each dog on its visits.
Charter FlexPetz member Shari Gonzalez said she was thinking about
getting a dog when a dog trainer she consulted suggested part-time
ownership. At first, she had reservations.
Gonzalez, 22, never doubted there was room for a dog in her heart. The
issue was her life, which included a small, two-bedroom apartment and a
full-time schedule of college classes in San Diego.
"I was thinking, 'How is a dog going to bounce from house to house and
be OK with that,'" she said. "I didn't want a dog that would come into
my place and pee."
Since signing up, Gonzalez said she has tried out several dogs but fell
in love with a black Lab named Jackpot. They spend an average of one day
each weekend together. He sleeps at her apartment and she takes him on
hikes, to the beach and to parks frequented by other dog owners.
"I never even thought that was a possibility," Gonzalez said. "I thought
you either owned a dog or you didn't."
Gonzalez recently met another of Jackpot's part-time companions, graphic
designer Jenny Goddard, 33. Goddard, who is married with a 6-year-old
son, said having a dog a weekend or two a month has been perfect for her
busy family and encourages them to spend more time together outdoors.
"It's funny," she said. "He is so friendly and immediately playful with
us, people are surprised he is a rental dog."
The idea of commitment-free pets is not entirely new. Most private
animal shelters, for instance, encourage volunteers to become temporary
foster families to animals awaiting adoption.
Melissa Bain, a veterinarian with the Companion Animal Behavior Program
at the University of California at Davis, said she had concerns but no
hard-and-fast objections to a service like FlexPetz.
"It depends on the people and it depends on the animal," Bain said.
"Some dogs may be fine and some may become stressed because they are
moving from home to home." |
