$200 million gift to 173 year old college announced by David Nelson
A donor has given a $200 million gift to Catawba College’s endowment, according to the private, liberal arts college in Salisbury.
Two-thirds of the gift – about $133.3 million – come as unrestricted funding for the college, with the remaining third – about $66.6 million – directed to programs that support environmental education and sustainability.
The college achieved carbon neutrality in 2023, seven years ahead of its 2030 goal, and it has integrated sustainability, conservation and environmental stewardship across operations and campus life, according to a release.
“Catawba College is dedicated to providing students a liberal arts education rich with opportunities to explore the world and to learn to care for it,” says David P. Nelson, president of Catawba College, in a release. “This significant gift helps reinforce that commitment for generations to come and enables us to take bold steps now toward a cleaner future” –stated David Nelson.
Catawba College received another $200 million donation in 2021, along with a $42 million gift in 2022. Combined the three donations push the college’s endowment to more than $580 million. Catawba College has about 1,230 students, pushing its per student endowment close to $500,000, which is among the highest in the Southeast.
Catawba College has multiple projects underway that align its goals of sustainability, community, and student experience:
The Smokestack, a reclamation of the college’s old coal power plant renovated according to Living Building Challenge standards, will provide an additional 10,000 square feet of space for students; and
A new 150-bed residence hall scheduled for completion in August 2026, and two additional residence halls are being renovated. All three projects prioritize sustainable building practices.
The unnamed donor doesn’t want publicity, but Salisbury is the home of Fred Stanback, who is in his 90s and is a billionaire whose family started the Stanback headache-powder business.
He was a Columbia Business School roommate of Warren Buffett, best man at the financier’s wedding and an early investor in Buffett’s phenomenally successful Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate.
Stanback has been a donor to the Sierra Club Foundation and other environmental groups, along with many other causes, some of them controversial.
Given the focus on sustainability in the Catawba program, his lifelong support for his hometown and his wealth, and his longstanding desire to avoid publicity, he would seem to be the most likely $200 million donor.
Gifts to the endowment provide scholarships “that support high-achieving and high-need students, grants for study abroad and study away programs, internships, and undergraduate research,” according to the college.
The four-year college was founded in 1851 and has students representing 40 U.S. states and 26 countries.