This publication brings another example of large-scale philanthropy involving a US academic institution.

The family of the late chemical industry billionaire Jon M Huntsman has gifted $150 million to the University of Utah to build a mental health institute, continuing a trend in multi-million dollar philanthropic transfers in fields such as medicine.

The Huntsman family will create the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, the university said in a statement yesterday. The institute will engage in mental health research, care, education and community outreach.

The gift comes at a time, the family said, when mental illness is an increasingly significant part of public policy. In its press release, the University of Utah said that in its state alone, a recent study showed that 40 per cent of 12-to-17-year-olds in the state experiencing depression were not getting treatment. A separate study from Mental Health America found that Utah ranked 51st in mental health management and treatment - behind all other states and Washington, DC.

The Huntsman gift fits with a pattern of such large transfers. A year ago, Michael Bloomberg, the media tycoon and former NYC Mayor, gifted $1.8 billion to John Hopkins University out of his private fortune. The amounts involved in modern philanthropy, even allowing for inflation compared with the era of the Rockefellers and Carnegies, are huge. (John D Rockefeller Snr was a notable benefactor to medical research.) In May 2017, 14 billionaires said they had signed the Giving Pledge, formally joining the 154 other billionaires who have pledged to transfer at least half of their vast wealth to philanthropic causes. The Giving Pledge was started in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

As part of the Huntsman grant agreement, the university said it will work closely with the Huntsman family to raise additional funds to support the institute and to increase awareness in the community about mental health. The money supports the University of Utah Health's Department of Psychiatry and full-service psychiatric hospital known as UNI (University Neuropsychiatric Institute). In addition, the donation will be used to support mental health services and screenings for the university's 32,000 students, as well as in rural areas across the state. 

"This grant is the culmination of years of interaction between the Huntsman family and UNI. This is a unique opportunity to bring together an immensely talented university with superb leadership and a philanthropic, generational commitment that we hope will only expand over time," Peter R Huntsman, CEO, Huntsman Foundation, said. "It is past time to change the stigma and misperceptions about mental health."

The university will recruit a new chair of the Department of Psychiatry who will also serve as the CEO of the institute. The search for that leader will be led by Randall J Olson, chair of the University's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and CEO of the John A Moran Eye Center. 

(During the next few weeks we will examine issues in philanthropy around the world. Please contact the editor at tom.burroughes@wealthbriefing.com, and deputy editor, at jackie.bennion@clearviewpublishing.com.)