Julia Koch also has a passion for the arts, particularly the performing arts. In the aughts, David Koch made a $100 million naming gift to the David H. Koch Foundation has long supported a number of arts and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution (though with some controversy), the American Museum of Natural History, the Met, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Opera. She also gave a $1.4 million gift to NYU to establish the Julia Koch Endowed Scholarship for medical students.Īrts giving will likely remain a priority Koch herself was treated by a doctor at the facility. Julia Koch supports NYU Langone’s Hip Center, home to the Julia Koch Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery. The late David Koch survived a plane crash in the early 1990s, only to discover he had prostate cancer not long after. In addition to food allergy work, expect cancer research to loom large, as well, going forward. Koch’s son, David Jr., has severe nut and shellfish allergies, and is required to carry an epi-pen. and Julia Koch Research Program in Food Allergy Therapeutics. And in 2012, the couple made a $10 million pledge to the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, creating the David H. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University, which is home to groundbreaking allergy and asthma clinical trials. In 2017, Julia and David Koch gave a $10 million gift to establish a new unit at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford for clinical research. Koch Foundation, what direction will this particular foundation take? And what should we expect from the philanthropy of America’s richest woman in the coming decades? Here are a few things to look out for. Critical voices like UnKoch My Campus have long argued that this grantmaking has been a classic example of outsized donor influence - shaping university hiring decisions, and introducing partisan curricula and research.īut now that Julia Koch serves as president of the David H. The Charles Koch Foundation gave some $100 million to higher education causes in the fiscal year 2019 alone. Such was their reputation that the phrase “Koch brothers” is still bandied about, even though David passed away three years ago.Ĭharles Koch is particularly infamous, in some quarters at least, for his ideologically freighted higher ed giving. While he was alive, David Koch and his older brother Charles were well-known (and infamous, for many) as some of the nation’s deepest-pocketed backers of libertarian and right-wing causes.

But the Kochs’ giving has also brought with it a hefty degree of controversy. Historically, Koch philanthropy has backed conventional causes in the arts and health. The couple were active philanthropists, including through the David H. But the two later reconnected and married in 1996. In the early 1990s, she met David Koch on a blind date, though, according to her, the initial date did not go well. And today, she is the richest woman in America - shooting past Alice Walton - with a net worth of $57 billion as of this writing.Īn Iowa native, Koch moved to New York City in the 1980s and worked in fashion. Julia Koch and her three children inherited a 42% stake in Koch Industries from David. Then there’s Julia Koch, 60, widow of late billionaire businessman David Koch, who passed away in 2019. We’ve also long tracked the giving of Alice Walton, who started her own foundation in 2017 to focus on increasing access to the arts, improving education outcomes, and other issues.

Since we put out that list of philanthropy’s 15 most powerful women back in 2014, other women have emerged or are emerging as philanthropic power players, including MacKenzie Scott and Nicole Shanahan. From Melinda Gates to Marilyn Simons, Laura Arnold, Priscilla Chan, and many others besides, more women are playing leading roles in philanthropy. Here at IP, we’ve long been following how women are wielding increasing power in the sector.

David h. koch mary julia koch