Carolina First

Kenan
In Carolina First, the Kenan family and its philanthropic entities continued their long tradition of support for the University, collectively representing the campaign’s largest donor. From left: Kenan Eminent Professor James Rives, Kenan Music Scholar Daniel Hammond, Kenan Trustee Tom Kenan, Kenan Music Scholar Lauren Schultes, Kenan Trust Executive Director Richard Krasno, Institute for the Arts and Humanities Fellow and Communication Studies Professor Pat Parker, chemist Nancy Allbritton and Kenan Music Scholar Jessica Kunttu.

 

Making the Difference

The Kenan Legacy

Transforming Philanthropy

By Lisa H. Towle

As long as there’s been a Carolina, there have been Kenans to support its mission. The family and its philanthropic entities have given more to the University over history and during the Carolina First Campaign than any other private donor. The various Kenan family philanthropies gave the University nearly $70 million during Carolina First, including:

Gifts from the Kenan family have benefited Carolina faculty since 1917, when Mary Lily Kenan Flagler left a bequest establishing the Kenan Foundation for Distinguished Professors. William R. Kenan Jr. (class of 1894) died in 1965 and left $95 million for philanthropy in the service of education, singling out his alma mater for special attention. The trust was formed that year and immediately began providing support for endowed professorships.

“Higher education, and particularly the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has always been a priority for the Kenan Trust,” said Thomas S. Kenan III, a trustee of the trust, who graduated from Carolina in 1959 with a degree in economics. “We’ve never wanted anything less than to help transform the University. … contributing to the Carolina First Campaign was another step toward that goal.”

Kenan Jr. also established The Randleigh Foundation Trust, which has made significant grants to UNC through the years, especially for the College of Arts and Sciences and the Special Collections Library.

It all began in 1790, when North Carolina legislator James Kenan, a member of UNC’s first Board of Trustees, contributed $50 to the construction of Old East, the first state university building in the nation. Over the next two centuries, dozens of family members would serve as trustees, make their way to Chapel Hill as students or function as benefactors. Taken in sum, this has created what Chancellor James Moeser has happily characterized as “one of the oldest philanthropic partnerships in American higher education.”

There’s virtue in longevity. Members of various Kenan branches continue to give to the University, either as individuals or through foundations and trusts. The gifts range from targeted to all-purpose, with funds going to professorships and libraries, athletic scholarships and the arts. But the charitable benchmark of the family was established when William Rand Kenan Jr. died and left the bulk of his estate for the trust bearing his name. From that has been shaped a national philanthropic institution focused widely and deeply on higher education, but favoring UNC, the only school specifically mentioned in the guidelines for the trust.

Today, the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust is valued at $550 million to $600 million, and the assets of the four affiliated William R. Kenan Jr. funds come to $140 million to $150 million. About 90 percent of their grants each year fund education both inside and outside the classroom. Thus, said Richard M. Krasno, executive director of the Kenan Trust and president of the funds, “This is a unique institution among academic foundations. We have really stuck to our knitting. We’re committed to the enduring rather than the trendy and provocative.”

That explains, then, the philanthropy’s willingness to be the momentum-makers in the Carolina First Campaign. Upon hearing about the start of the campaign in 2000, Krasno paid a visit to the chancellor in order to learn more about its goals and priorities. He took the information back to the trustees, Thomas Kenan and Mary Lily Flagler Wiley, a grandniece of William R. Kenan Jr. They concurred it was critical to support Carolina’s vision of becoming the nation’s leading public university.

“In recognition of the importance of the Carolina First Campaign to the University, the trust wanted to give gifts that built on the precedent set by generations of members of the Kenan family,” said Krasno, former president of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif., as well as former president and CEO of the Institute of International Education in New York.

(Editor’s note: This piece is based on excerpts from a story that appeared in the Spring 2008 Carolina Arts & Sciences magazine.)


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