A number of universities last week learned the identity of one of their major anonymous donors.
He is Charles F. Feeney, who made his fortune as co-owner of a chain of duty-free airport shops. Over the past 13 years, he gave away more than $600-million, about half of it to higher education in the United States and abroad.
American institutions receiving his gifts, which ranged to more than $10-million, include Cornell and Portland State Universities, the University of Pennsylvania, the College Board, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Mr. Feeney also gave to some Irish institutions, including Dublin City University and Trinity College.
He was able to keep his giving secret because he used the bulk of his wealth to create two foundations in Bermuda that did the giving anonymously, through a third organization in New York City.
Members of the foundations’ governing boards include several big names in U.S. philanthropic and higher-education circles. Some, like Frank H.T. Rhodes, a former president of Cornell University, worked at institutions that received the gifts. Cornell, for example, has received more than $50-million from the foundations. Mr. Feeney is a 1956 Cornell graduate.
He revealed his identity to many of his beneficiaries and to The New York Times because he feared that his gifts would become public through a lawsuit filed by a former business partner, according to a spokesman for his foundations.
The suit is over the recent sale of the 38.75-per-cent interest that the foundations held in Mr. Feeney’s company, Duty Free Shoppes, to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
That sale may mean even more money for colleges. The proceeds are going to the foundations, bringing their total assets to $3.5-billion. That would make them together the country’s fifth-wealthiest philanthropy if they were located in the United States, based on a list in the 1996 edition of the Foundation Directory.
In 1984, Mr. Feeney created the Atlantic Foundation in Bermuda, which later set up a sister fund, the Atlantic Trust. The foundations do not accept unsolicited proposals. The Atlantic Philanthropic Service Company Inc., with an office of about 20 people in New York City, identifies worthy causes and asks them to submit proposals. Awardees receive a cashier’s check, enabling the source to remain concealed.
Peter McCue, a spokesman for the Atlantic Philanthropic Service, says the foundations have not identified themselves to all of their beneficiaries, nor will they.
While giving most of his money away, Mr. Feeney has kept about $5-million for himself. But he doesn’t own a house or a car, and he flies economy class, says Mr. McCue."This is somebody who just doesn’t see the need to live in a way where there’s excess,” he says."And he truly shuns and disdains attention for himself.”