The other night, I had an interesting conversation with a fellow Asian American fundraiser about donors and their desire to name buildings, programs, scholarships, etc. We agreed that most Asian donors we have worked with preferred being anonymous with their giving unless they were making a gift to honor a family member or someone special.
However, we are seeing a trend where some Asian American donors do want to make their giving public. Besides the recognition it gives the donor and his family, it's great for the organization because the publicity may encourage other folks or even friends of the donors to give.
Here are some examples of donors with buildings named (or will be named) after them:
UC Berkeley received $5 million from Coleman Fung to establish the Coleman Fund Risk Management Research Center. He is an alum and founded the software company OpenLink. He also seeded a family foundation with $18 million.
This week, La Jolla Playhouse announced a $1 million gift from Rao and Padma Makineni. In recognition of their generosity, the Play Development Center will be named after them. Rao Makineni was born in India. He co-founded the Fox Chemical Company and later co-founded Bachem with Peter Grogg.
San Francisco State University will be naming their planned art center, Mashouf Creative Arts Center, to honor Manny Mashouf, an alumnus and founder of the fashion company, Bebe. Mr. Mashouf gave $10 million towards the project. Born in Iran, Mr. Mashouf founded the company in 1976 and took it public in 1999. They have over 230 stores and $510 million in annual sales.
