Gift overview in 2006

Beneficiary: Bernard Osher Foundation
Donors' background: Mr. Osher is a founding director of Golden West Financial Corporation, an Oakland, Calif., savings and loan company that merged with Wachovia last October. Mrs. Osher is the consul general of Sweden's consulate in San Francisco.

Donations in 2006

Mr. Osher, 79, and his wife, Barbro, donated 10 million shares of Golden West Financial Corporation stock worth $723.2-million to the Bernard Osher Foundation, in San Francisco.

The couple would not say exactly how much of their total donation would support each program, but they have earmarked the money for college scholarships, performing-arts programs, and several higher-education projects.

One of these, the Osher Re-entry Scholarship Program, provides money to 40 colleges and universities for scholarships to people between the ages of 25 and 50. The students must have formerly been traditional-age college students whose studies were interrupted and who now want to complete their degrees.

The money will also support three medical-education centers focused on integrating conventional and alternative approaches to medicine. Through the Bernard Osher Foundation, and Mrs. Osher's Pro Suecia Foundation, the couple established the first center at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine in 1998, the second center at Harvard Medical School in 2001, and the third center at the Karolinska Institute, a medical university in Stockholm, in 2005.