for $350 million you can get a school in your name https://www.educationdive.com/news/national-university-gets-350m-gift-new-name/564586/
Denny Sanford is a billionaire South Dakota philanthropist with great interest in education and health care. He already made a huge donation to San Diego's Burnham Institute. At one time it operated my favorite California approved PhD program and I passionately hoped that somebody there would win the first California approved Nobel Prize. But no... today it's RA. And renamed the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. https://www.sbpdiscovery.org/ https://www.sbpdiscovery.org/education/graduate-school https://www.sbpdiscovery.org/biomedical-research/programs
Another big thing that Denny Sanford did is create Sanford Health. This combined a bunch of formerly struggling hospitals in South Dakota into a new system, endowed that system with $1 billion of Denny Sanford's money, spurring growth that's seen the system spreading into North Dakota and Minnesota, while adding a fairly robust research arm. https://www.sanfordhealth.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_Health In addition, the University of South Dakota Medical School is now the USD Sanford Medical School operating the USD Sanford Medical Center in Sioux Falls, that city's largest employer, after a generous gift. Sanford endowed a new pediatric facility at the Mayo Clinic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_USD_Medical_Center And there's the National University thing. That's seen National absorbing North Central U, JFK U., City U. in Seattle along with the roll-out of a bunch of interesting new education projects likely to raise National University's profile and make it a player in the field of education. National University Academy is a tuition free charter school. https://www.nuacademy.org/about-nua/ For DL students, there's National University Virtual High School https://www.nuvhs.org/ There's also free professional development MOOCs for teachers and support for homeschooling parents. See this earlier thread: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/national-university-acquiring-ncu.52414/
He has done a lot of splendid things with his billions. I especially like $70 million to turn the defunct Home Stake Mine into an underground research center (whose director won the 2002 Nobel in physics). We can even overlook that his billions came from sub-prime lending.
