Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy Winners

Medal Recipient: Eli Broad
Philanthropist and business leader Eli Broad is the founder-chairman of two Fortune 500 companies: SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home (formerly Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation). He has been awarded the Carnegie medal in recognition of his dedication to a range of philanthropic and community causes including art, education, science and civic development.

In education, The Broad Foundation has committed over $500 million in funding in its first five years, focusing on the improvement of governance, management, labor relations and competition in K-12 urban education. The foundation has launched initiatives such as the Broad Prize for Urban Education, The Broad Center for Superintendents, The Broad Residency in Urban Education and the Broad Institute for School Boards.

In science, an unprecedented collaboration among the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the Whitehead Institute launched The Eli and Edythe Broad Institute for biomedical research in June 2003. The Broads' gift of $200 million aims to realize the promise of the human genome. Other higher education initiatives include The Eli Broad College of Business and The Broad Center for the Biological Sciences at the California Institute of Technology.

The Broad Art Foundation's activities extend over 25 major museums and institutions nationwide, from New York City’s Museum of Modern Art to The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, now one of the premiere venues in the United States. In addition to museum patronage, the Broads have supported the arts at numerous colleges and universities. To encourage and strengthen great public appreciation of the visual arts, they loan the nearly 800 pieces in their personal art collection to public museums around the world.

A tireless civic leader, Eli Broad has recently focused on creating a vital core in downtown Los Angeles where culture, great architecture, housing, business and entertainment will flourish. By bringing together officials from the City and County of Los Angeles, he is leading the effort to make Los Angeles a rival to the world's greatest cities.

Medal Recipient: Teresa Heinz, on behalf of the Heinz Family
The Heinz family has been awarded the Carnegie medal for their sustained philanthropic giving in support of the environment, education, economic opportunity and the arts as well as efforts to enhance the lives of women and children. In 1995, the family made one of the largest grants ever to benefit the environment _ $20 million to establish the Washington, D.C.-based H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. The Center brings together representatives of business, government, the scientific community and environmental groups to collaborate on the development of fair, scientifically sound environmental policies.

Teresa Heinz accepts the award on behalf of the family. She is chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies and The Heinz Endowments, two of the nation’s most innovative philanthropic institutions. She is the creator of the prestigious Heinz Awards, an annual program recognizing outstanding vision and achievement in the arts; public policy; the environment; the human condition; and technology, the economy and employment. Mrs. Heinz assumed direction of the family’s philanthropic operations after the death of her husband, U.S. Senator John Heinz, in 1991, undertaking a major reorganization designed to sharpen the foundations’ strategic focus.

The Heinz Family Philanthropies also fund the Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research program for projects having "public policy relevance that increases society's understanding of environmental concerns and proposed solutions." Eight $10,000 awards for doctoral dissertation support and eight $5,000 awards for master's thesis support are given annually. Since 1995, Mrs. Heinz has sponsored annual conferences on Women’s Health and the Environment. She has endowed a professorship in environmental management at the Harvard University Business School and a chair in environmental policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Mrs. Heinz is vice chair of the Environmental Defense Fund and was Co-founder of the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, which later became the Alliance for Healthy Homes. In 2003 she was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal of Humanitarianism, which honors those who have shown exemplary service to humanity. The mother of three sons, Teresa Heinz is now married to U.S. Senator John Kerry.

Medal Recipient: The Mellon Family
The Mellon Family has been awarded the Carnegie Medal in recognition of their impressive legacy of philanthropic giving, which has had a profound effect on some of Pennsylvania and the nation’s most valued institutions. The award will be received by different branches of the Mellon family who represent the breadth of the family’s giving: Richard Mellon, Seward Prosser Mellon and Tim Mellon.

In the1930s Andrew Mellon, one of the earliest American venture capitalists, donated his extensive art collection to provide the beginnings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. as well as the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. In 1969, Andrew’s children Paul and Ailsa established the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which supports museums and art conservation as well as higher education and scholarship, information technology research, performing arts and conservation and the environment.

The Foundation’s annual Distinguished Achievement Awards, amounting to as much as $1.5 million each, honor scholars who have made significant contributions to humanistic inquiry. They provide the recipients and their institutions with resources to deepen and extend humanistic studies and enable awardees to teach and do research while enlarging opportunities for scholarship and teaching at the academic institutions with which they are affiliated.

By merging their scientific research institute with Carnegie Tech, the Mellon family helped to create Carnegie Mellon University in 1967, and generous support for the university has continued to come from the family through the years. The university’s art museum and public policy center have been beneficiaries, and the Tepper School of Business (originally the Graduate School of Industrial Administration) was founded with an endowment from Gulf Oil founder William Larimer Mellon.

The Richard King Mellon Foundation helped launch Carnegie Mellon’s Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and provided extensive support for the computer science, public policy and laboratory sciences. The Foundation funded the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, the linchpin of the area’s biotechnology sector and supports schools, hospitals, and myriad causes throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania. Nationally, it has led the way in land preservation, purchasing more than 1 million acres in 50 states, assuring that this land will remain undeveloped and available for public enjoyment.

Medal Recipient: Ratan Tata, on behalf of the Tata Family
The Tata family has been awarded the Carnegie medal in recognition of its longstanding commitment to philanthropic causes. Nearly two thirds of the equity of the Tata Group’s parent firm, Tata Sons Ltd., is held by philanthropic trusts originally endowed by two sons of the company’s founder, Jamsetji Tata. Through these trusts, Tata Sons gives away on average between eight and fourteen percent of its net profit every year. The award will be accepted by Ratan Tata, chairman of India’s influential industrial conglomerate, Tata Group, and one of that country’s foremost philanthropic leaders.

Tata Group’s multipurpose trusts are chaired by Ratan Tata, and include two of the oldest and largest private grantmaking organizations in India. The trusts’ philosophy of "constructive philanthropy" has become embedded in for-profit Tata Group's values, and has played a role in changing the traditional concept of charity throughout India. The Tata family is considered one of the few philanthropic forces in the country with the potential to facilitate collaborative action on the problems that threaten individual, local and national development.

Since their donation of land for the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore in 1898, the family and its trusts have given support, through large and small grants, to myriad causes: science, medicine, social services, health, civil society and governance, rural welfare, performing arts, education and the needs of children. Tata family funding has established pioneering institutions in social sciences, cancer research and treatment and tropical disease research.

A strong proponent of corporate social responsibility, Ratan Tata strives to give his company’s philanthropic initiatives focus and to build awareness of important issues such as literacy, microfinance and water conservation among other grassroots community initiatives. In addition to his leadership role within the family trusts, Tata serves on the board of numerous influential medical and arts organizations including the program board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s India AIDS Initiative.