Philanthropist contributes $70 million to Nevada Community Foundation
A Las Vegas entrepreneur who made a fortune in medical devices has donated a healthy sum to a local philanthropic foundation.
Alfred Mann, 88, gave $70 million to the Nevada Community Foundation, the charity said Thursday. Mann’s gift takes the foundation from an endowment of $35 million to $105 million.
“A gift of this significance has the ability to catalyze philanthropy within our community and beyond,” said Gian Brosco, the foundation’s president, in a statement. “We are honored that such a prominent member of our community has chosen to place his funds with the Nevada Community Foundation. Preserving and protecting our donors’ philanthropic legacies is at the core of what we do here. It is our mission. For a businessman and philanthropist of Al Mann’s stature to invest in us is a huge endorsement of the community foundation, and we couldn’t be more pleased.”
The 25-year-old foundation, established with a contribution from local gaming pioneer Moe Dalitz a year before his 1989 death, has more than 150 funds that support dozens of local causes, from scholarships and music education to bullying prevention and animal conservation. Foundation representatives wouldn’t say where Mann’s donation would be directed, but they said they will work with him in coming months to “strategize his philanthropic interests.”
The foundation serves as a middleman for philanthropists, handling paperwork and other administrative details to establish charitable funds, increase endowments and direct charitable contributions.
Mann is an Oregon native who started his first business, a lemonade stand, at 5. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from UCLA, and still has a home in the Los Angeles area. He has founded more than a dozen biomedical and aerospace companies. A recent Forbes report listed Mann’s 2011 net worth at $1 billion, and noted that his companies have dominated the market for pacemakers, insulin pumps and cochlear implants.
Mann has also funded Alfred E. Mann Institutes at the University of Southern California, Purdue University and the Technion Institute in Israel. The website for his Foundation for Biomedical Engineering said he plans to endow up to a dozen more institutes.
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at
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