Anonymous Donor Pledges Second $500 Million Gift To McPherson College

In a stunning development, McPherson College announced on Friday that it had received a second commitment of $500 million from an anonymous donor, who had pledged $500 million last year as part of a unique giving challenge. Combined, the two pledges are among the largest private gifts ever received by an American college.

As a result of the gifts, the college says that its endowment will eventually be worth $1.59 billion, resulting in what its news release claimed will be the largest endowment of any small liberal arts college in the United States.

Last year, officials at McPherson, a private, Kansas liberal arts college with an enrollment of fewer than 1,000 students, announced it had received a commitment of up to $500 million from the anonymous donor.

The gift came in an unusual form — a “double-match” estate gift, in which the donor would contribute two dollars for every dollar given by others, up to a total of $500 million for the college’s endowment. Both estate gift commitments and outright gifts to the college’s endowment qualified for the match.

McPherson had until June 30, 2023 to reach that goal, and this week it confirmed that it had, in fact, met the $500 million double-match challenge. But that was not the end of the good news. The big reveal? The anonymous donor was committing an additional $500 million estate gift for a total commitment of $1 billion.

In recognition of the gift, the McPherson College Board of Trustees voted to name the McPherson College endowment after two late, beloved alumni and professors at McPherson College, Drs. John Ward and John Burkholder.

The college, which is probably best known for its unique, nationally recognized Automotive Restoration Technology degree program (comedian and car collector Jay Leno is one of its financial supporters), said that most of the donations used to meet the challenge will be received over time as estate gifts.

“Today is historic, not just for McPherson College, but for all small liberal arts colleges in America,” said Michael Schneider, McPherson’s president. “I am incredibly grateful to our anonymous donor for giving us an unprecedented opportunity—and responsibility—to build and implement our strategic vision of becoming a destination learning community.”

“Now, the work begins to build a bridge to our future endowment,” Schneider added, in the news release. “We need to carefully plan how the income from the endowment is deployed to reimagine and construct the campus of the future, build a much-needed rural health pipeline in Kansas, create a center for the future of automotive engineering and work to make college more affordable for all our students. There has never been a better day to be a part of the McPherson College community!”

At the time of the initial challenge, McPherson indicated that it planned to use the gift to fund the college’s Community by Design strategic plan, which included four initiatives:

• Continuation of its Student Debt Project, which provides matching funds for students who hold jobs while attending school;
• Construction of three new buildings — a 55,000-square-foot Campus Commons student life center, a new recreation and social space, and the Holman Center for Athletics;
• The Kansas Center for Rural & Community Health Science;
• The National Center for the Future of Engineering, Design & Mobility.

Friday’s announcement about the purposing of the endowment was consistent with those plans.

A significant part of the matching funds came from a $50 million donation from philanthropists Melanie and Richard Lundquist, who committed $25 million to McPherson in May, 2022 and then announced an additional $25 million gift to the college last November.

“McPherson College has been a special place for Richard and me for over a decade,” said Dr. Melanie Lundquist, in the university’s release. “We have especially appreciated President Schneider and Provost Gutierrez’s innovative, problem-solving leadership. It has also been one of our greatest pleasures to support McPherson’s one-of-a-kind automotive restoration program. Richard was honored to donate his classic Ferrari to the program, and we are both thrilled that this unique program – and McPherson College — will be on solid footing for perpetuity as a result of this phenomenally generous matching gift.”

Next month, McPherson College’s automotive restoration program will be showcased at the prestigious 2023 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. A group of its auto restoration students have worked over a six-year period to fully restore a 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300 S Cabriolet, which will compete at this year’s event.