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The Philanthropy 50: Americans Who Gave the Most in 2008
Jesse H. and Beulah C. Cox
Rank: 24
Total amount committed in 2008: $83.5-million
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Source of wealth: Manufacturing
Other key beneficiary: Legacy Fund of Hamilton County
Donors' background: Mr. Cox started the J.H. Cox Manufacturing Company, which supplied Venetian blinds to retailers such as Sears, Roebuck & Company. He later bought a small company and started Aero Drapery & Blind. When he sold that company in 1982, it was bringing in $30-million annually. The Coxes later began farming nearly 1,500 acres in Indiana and buying and managing commercial rental property.
Mr. Cox, who died in 2008 at 90, and his wife, Beulah, who died in 1999 at the age of 81, left $77-million to Indiana University and $6.5-million to the Legacy Fund of Hamilton County, in Carmel, an affiliate of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, in Indianapolis. The former is the largest gift the university has ever received, and will be used to pay for scholarships for students with good grades who need financial assistance. The scholarships provide 75 percent of the total cost of attending either Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis or Indiana University Bloomington. Mr. Cox stipulated that students receiving the scholarships work for the other 25 percent, preferably in a job that is associated with their major. The Bloomington campus receives two-thirds of the total bequest, and matches that amount for student scholarships, and the Indianapolis campus receives one third.
"When we started talking about this 20 years ago," says Curtis Simic, president emeritus of the Indiana University Foundation, "his real concern was that young people who aren't people of resource have every opportunity to go to school."
Mr. Simic remembers when Mr. Cox met with one of the first groups of students to receive the scholarships. "He said, 'I've been thinking about you before you were born.'"
Mr. Cox died only 36 hours after hearing the news that the first class of students to receive his scholarship had graduated, says Mr. Simic. "He got to see his dream come true, and then he passed away."
The $6.5-million that the Coxes left to the Legacy Fund of Hamilton County is for the benefit of Coxhall Gardens. The couple had previously donated their home and surrounding 125 acres of land to the Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Department to create the gardens.
Mr. and Ms. Cox both grew up in Indiana during the Depression and met in high school. Ms. Cox graduated from Indiana Central Business College, and Mr. Cox graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor's degree in business in 1944. Before graduating, he supported himself and his wife with a variety of entrepreneurial businesses, including a transportation service between Bloomington and Indianapolis, and a mimeograph service.
About These Data
The giving figures listed for each individual are based on donations announced to date by the donors or their beneficiaries. In cases of bequests, most of the figures are estimates because the wills have not been settled. For news of gift announcements in 2009, visit the America's Top Donors database.
If you know about a recent gift of $1-million or more that should be added to this directory, please send a message to gifts@philanthropy.com.