Hunt family creates $15 million fund at Foundation
Largest one-time gift by living donor
A lifetime away, but a desire to “do good for Pittsburgh and the world”
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 27, 2015 – Dr. Richard and Priscilla Hunt have established a $15 million fund at The Pittsburgh Foundation, making the donation the largest of its kind by a living donor in the philanthropy’s 70-year history.
The gift is remarkable not only for its size but for its connection to Pittsburgh’s industrial heyday: Dr. Hunt is the grandson of Alfred E. Hunt, who founded Alcoa, the worldwide industrial producer of aluminum and related products. Establishing the fund only underscores the couple’s desire to give back to the city that enabled the innovation that created so many businesses, the Hunts’ son, Bill, said for the public announcement this weekend. Unlike his father, who chose an academic career at Harvard over business, Bill has made Pittsburgh his home and work center as president and CEO of the Elmhurst Group, a real estate and investment firm.
The new fund seals the family’s commitment, Dr. Hunt said, “to give back to the city that gave so much to our family.” It is important to the couple that they make the gift during their lifetimes so they could witness the impact of their gifts on organizations they respect and trust.
“We hope that any news of this gift might inspire other charitably-minded people to use the community foundation in their lifetimes to support causes of personal importance,” said Mrs. Hunt, 86, who along with her husband Dr. Richard Hunt, 89, have lived in Boston since 1956. “The needs in the community now are so great that we decided we just didn’t want to wait any longer.”
Maxwell King, president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation, said the board and staff are grateful that the community foundation has earned a stewardship reputation that attracts donors at the level of the Hunts and also serves as a resource in assisting them in realizing their goals.
“The Hunts intend to be very active in making decisions on grants that they believe will make lasting contributions to the city and the world beyond, and we’re very impressed with their willingness to lead and inspire others to do the same.”
Mr. King said more and more donors want to be personally involved in their philanthropy, and community foundations are structured to enable them to do that. “They want to have maximum impact on where their grants go and to monitor what is done with the funding. They often look for the resources and experience of a foundation that has been doing this type of philanthropy for decades.”
Giving Runs in the Family: The Hunts come from a long line of philanthropists, beginning with Alfred, who served as a captain in the U.S. Army National Guard. Alfred’s son, Roy A. Hunt, established The Alcoa Foundation. Two other philanthropies he established, The Hunt Foundation and the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, merged in 1994. Today, Dr. Hunt is second-generation trustee of the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.
Dr. and Mrs. Hunt have designated their three children—Bill of Pittsburgh; Susan Hunt Hollingsworth of Cleveland, Ohio; and Dr. Helen Hunt Bouscaren of Cambridge, Mass.—as successor-advisors to their fund at The Pittsburgh Foundation. Dr. and Mrs. Hunt plan to make a series of major grants almost immediately to causes such as Family Aid Boston, where Mrs. Hunt has been on the board for many years; the Southern Poverty Law Center, which they’ve supported for decades; the American Field Service, in honor of Dr. Hunt’s volunteer service as an ambulance driver in World War II with the British Foreign Services in India and Burma (a vision problem disqualified him from service in the U.S. military); Carnegie Mellon University; and to Oberlin College, to which both families have ties.
In fact, the two owe their relationship to Oberlin, aluminum and a dash of friendly parental meddling.
Mrs. Hunt’s father, William E. Stevenson, served as president of Oberlin College from 1946 to 1960. While a student at Oberlin, Charles Martin Hall began devising the electrolytic process for inexpensively extracting aluminum, a process he perfected shortly after he graduated. After graduation, Hall traveled to Pittsburgh to look for backers, whom he found in the Mellon family. Hall then founded the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which later became Alcoa. In the 1950s, Priscilla’s father invited Richard Hunt’s parents to attend the dedication of the Hall Auditorium on Oberlin’s campus in Hall’s honor. Richard’s parents were so impressed with Priscilla that they encouraged her to contact Richard in New York City. She took their advice and that meeting led to their courtship and eventual marriage.
Before moving to Boston, Dr. and Mrs. Hunt were New Yorkers. There, through a project associated with the United Nations, she discovered the Southern Poverty Law Center. From 1951 to 1955, Dr. Hunt worked for Free Europe Press, which supplemented the work of Radio Free Europe in New York and in Munich.
Rather than giving only through their will, the couple wanted to engage in philanthropic pursuits during their lifetimes. They spent considerable time researching their options. They considered giving directly to charities and through donor-advised funds, but found themselves wanting ongoing guidance and support. Their son Bill Hunt knew The Pittsburgh Foundation well, having served on the board from 2008 to 2014.
Bill, along with his grandfather Roy and his uncle Alfred, had also served on various advisory boards for the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, which is as iconic an institution as Alcoa in this region and further influenced the family’s interest in giving to western Pennsylvania nonprofits.
“For many reasons related to our family history, our parents feel a deep loyalty to Pittsburgh. Giving through The Pittsburgh Foundation is a way for them to connect our philanthropy back to the region where our family’s money was made originally and to subject-matter experts who can articulate the needs of the region. We also maintain the freedom to give to organizations anywhere in the country,” said Bill Hunt.
In addition to advice from their son, Dr. and Mrs. Hunt also credit their professional advisors Jack Kessler of Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney’s tax section and John Schmerling who chairs the Estates & Trusts Group at Cohen & Grigsby with guiding them toward The Pittsburgh Foundation. Kessler and Schmerling recommended a community foundation as a way for experienced philanthropists like the Hunts to reconnect with a region they love but do not know as intimately as they would like.
“My wife and I came from two high-achieving families from business, law, the arts and academia,” said Dr. Hunt. “Our parents left us a legacy to live up to, and we’ve chosen to honor that legacy though the practice of effective philanthropy. We believe giving through The Pittsburgh Foundation will help us achieve some success.”
BIOGRAPHIES:
Dr. Richard Hunt graduated from Yale University in 1949, receiving a master's degree from Columbia University (1951) and received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1960. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1960, he has held a number of administrative posts including University Marshal, director of the Mellon Faculty Fellowship Program, assistant dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1960-1969), and associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1970-1977). Hunt has taught a Core Curriculum course on Weimar and Nazi Germany and a Social Studies junior tutorial on "Leadership and Followership." Hunt has also served as chairman of the Faculty Committee on Religion and as a member of the Social Studies and Center for European Studies committees. He retired from Harvard in 2002.
Mrs. Priscilla Hunt graduated in 1951 from Oberlin College where she studied French literature. Prior to Oberlin she attended the Putney School, a boarding school in Vermont, living there and with her grandmother for three years while her parents volunteered with the Red Cross in Europe during World War II. After graduating from Oberlin, she moved to New York City, where she worked for the American Association for The United Nations overseeing state-level competitions for 3,000 public high schools across the country. She married her husband, Dr. Richard Hunt in 1955. The couple then moved to Boston in 1956 where, in addition to raising their three children, Mrs. Hunt volunteered for numerous organizations such as the League of Women Voters and the Cambridge YWCA. She was also deeply interested in civil rights—a cause she attributes to her mother’s civil rights activism and the Oberlin College tradition of protecting civil rights for all. In the summer of 1964, Mrs. Hunt volunteered for Wednesdays in Mississippi, through which interracial and interfaith teams of young women traveled to the South for short stints to witness and report back regarding conditions facing civil right workers. From 1976 to 1991, Mrs. Hunt volunteered as a docent at Harvard University’s Art Museums, where she specialized in guided tours of the museums’ antiquities and East Asian and Indian art collections. She also serves on the board of Family Aid Boston (originally named Travelers Aid), where she was Board president for six years.