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KUM & GO CEO ONE OF EIGHT TO DONATE $20 MILLION WEST DES MOINES, IA MAY 17, 2007 Eight local families have pledged a minimum of $2 million each for a total of $20 million of unrestricted community endowments, Johnny Danos, president of the Greater Des Moines Community Foundation said Tuesday.
Although the pledges are unrestricted, the eight benefactor families will have some say in developing a strategy for use of the money, Danos said.
“The bent of this group is to look at capital projects,” he said.
“Having a little more fun with your philanthropic dollars,” was one of the reasons the new “leadership circle” of high-value donors was created, said Maddie Levitt, one of the new benefactors.
In addition to Levitt, whose family created the business now known as Wells Fargo Financial, couples pledging a minimum of $2 million each to be paid over several years were: Principal Financial Group chief executive Barry and Michele Griswell; Wells Fargo Mortgage chief Mark and Jill Oman; real estate developer Bill and Susan Knapp; Kum & Go chief executive Kyle and Sharon Krause; investors Jim and Patty Cownie; retired AmerUs Group chairman Roger Brooks and Sunnie Richer, president of Doextra Corp; and retired construction executive Fred and Emily Weitz.
The endowments are structured so that the first $500,000 on each pledge is payable within four years and the last payment can be paid from the benefactors’ estates after they die, Krause said.
Danos said the foundation hopes to double the number of participants in the next year.
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