Couple bequeaths $8 million to UH
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
An anonymous couple's $8 million gift to benefit cancer research places an exclamation point at the end of the University of Hawai'i's biggest fund-raising campaign ever.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The $8 million is the single largest donation to the University of Hawai'i in the school's history.
Technicians Matt Ota, left, and Caroline Beach-Ojerio examine blood samples at the University of Hawai'i's Cancer Research Center. The center has received an anonymous $8 million donation, the largest single gift in school history.
It will go to the Cancer Research Center and is part of the $116.4 million the school received in its "Campaign for Hawai'i," a four-year quest to bring the system's fund-raising ability up to par with other universities nationwide.
The campaign's grand total sets a new precedent for UH and happened during generally dismal Island economic conditions and dwindling state funds for the university. The University of Hawai'i Foundation, which raises money for the 10-campus system, now pulls in donations at the rate of $30 million a year, up from the approximately $10 million a year before the campaign started.
The $8 million gift was secured recently and was a surprise to university officials, who did not solicit a donation from the couple.
It more than doubles the previous UH record for non-corporate gifts.
Nadine Kahanamoku, the widow of renowned swimmer and surfer Duke Kahanamoku, left $3.4 million to the medical school after her death in 1997. Kahanamoku's donation went into an endowment to fund as many 10 scholarships each year to UH medical students, with preference given to Native Hawaiians.
The $8 million gift is unencumbered, meaning the Cancer Research Center can spend it any way it chooses. But because it won't come to UH until after the death of the couple, planning for its use is impossible. About 25 percent of the $116.4 million raised is in some form of delayed giving, such as estate planning.
"There is no answer to how it (the $8 million) will be used," said Carl Vogel, director of the Cancer Research Center. "It depends on when that money will be realized by the university. It could be 10 years or 15 years. Who knows?"
If the center were to receive the money tomorrow, Vogel said he would put the money into an endowment and use the interest to hire two to three more faculty members, help fund projects and maybe purchase some new laboratory equipment.
The Cancer Research Center ranks among the powerhouses of UH research and is one of 59 National Cancer Institute-designated sites in the country. It receives about $2 million a year in state funding, but brings in $23 million a year in research grants.
About 25 faculty members and 215 employees make up the core of the center, but several other UH colleges, especially the College of Natural Science at the Manoa campus, have professors who work with the center on research.
While anonymous gifts aren't unprecedented at the Cancer Center, the size of this one is. In a typical year, hundreds of thousands of dollars may flow to the center in donations, but never in the million-dollar range, Vogel said.
"Usually people want to be thanked and recognized," Vogel said. "I've met with them (the donor couple) and they want to remain anonymous."
John Landgraf, president of Friends of the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i, said some donors do not want the attention that comes along with a large gift, even if it is part of an estate plan.
"Many people do this because the minute it becomes public information, there is a tendency for every other organization to contact them to see if they would be a prospective donor," Landgraf said. "Everyone would put them at the top of the list. They become pestered."
News of the donation is also a welcomed 30th-anniversary present for the Cancer Center. It was founded in 1971 as part of the Pacific Biomedical Research Center. It was established as an independent institute in 1981 and is located in a five-story downtown building.
The "Campaign for Hawai'i" is the latest effort by the university to seek funding outside the state budget. In the past decade, Hawai'i has trailed behind other states in funding higher education.
