Major Gifts

Just in time for Christmas, N.C. State University is getting the biggest gift in its 123-year history. Lonnie C. Poole Jr., who made a fortune in the garbage-hauling business, and his wife, Carol Johnson Poole, are giving the university $40 million. That single gift will swell NCSU's entire endowment by nearly 10 percent and instantly boost the profile of the university's young management college, which is getting most of the money.

Donors to The Salvation Army can double their donated dollars to the charity during this holiday season. The Salvation Army announced Tuesday that three anonymous donors have offered to match all donations up to $300,000 given to the charity's red kettles in the Chicago area through Friday. A fourth anonymous donor has offered to match gold coins found in the kettles up to 100 coins.

For 99.9 percent of the players in the NBA, July 1, 2011 is circled on their calendars as the start of a potential lockout if the player's union and the league's owners can't come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement before the current one expires on June 30. For Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest, July 1 marks the day he will announce just how much of his 2011-12 salary he will donate to charities to benefit mental health awareness.

A $15 million gift to Rice University will allow it to expand its signature urban research project to cities around the world.

Versions of the Houston Area Survey, which has documented demographic and cultural shifts in Houston for almost 30 years, will be conducted in cities around the United States, as well as those in other countries.

Drexel University on Tuesday morning will announce a whopping $45 million gift from corporate executive and alumnus Bennett S. LeBow for a new academic center for its business school, which already bears his name.

It's Drexel's largest gift from a single donor and the 12th largest to be made to a U.S. business school, Drexel officials said.

We'd like to introduce SOFII to those of our readers who don't know about it and share some of the fundraising efforts that have made it into the site's Best of the Best Showcase.

The parents of a boy who lost his battle with cancer have donated $30 million to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto with the goal of helping more children survive the disease. The donation, believed to be the single largest private gift to pediatric cancer in North America, will establish the Garron Family Cancer Centre and fund research into childhood cancer.

Analyzing trends in the fundraising world is important on many levels. It lets you know what's happening in the industry, what that may mean for the future and how it compares to the past. Studying trends also lets you know where you stand compared to other organizations, allowing you to pinpoint what your organization is doing well and what it needs to work on.

On the day the Circle Ten Council of the Boy Scouts grew $25 million richer, Trevor Rees-Jones and Rex Tillerson were riding around in a golf cart at the national Jamboree, witnessing firsthand the power of Scouting.

That was two months ago when Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, asked fellow Dallas oilman Rees-Jones to make a $25 million donation to the local chapter. It was a lofty sum, more than anybody has given a regional Scouting chapter.

The ACLU's Leading Freedom Forward campaign transformed the organization's mind-set and major- and planned-giving strategies.