15 Largest Gifts by Indian Philanthropists in the United States

Rajen A Kilachand, chairman and president of the Dubai based Dodsal Group, a mining, construction, manufacturing, and trading conglomerate, has gifted $115 million to his alma mater Boston University to create the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering. Kilachand’s gift last month is the single largest gift by an Indian to an institution in the United States. It was Kilachand’s third major gift to Boston University, from where he graduated with an MBA in 1974. In 2011, he pledged $25 million to establish the Arvind and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand Honors College and one year later he contributed $10 million to renovate the student residences at Kilachand Hall.

According to the university, Kilachand’s gifts “collectively constitute one of the 50 largest gifts to higher education ever in the United States.”

On Sept 25, Tampa Cardiologist Kiran C Patel and his wife Pediatrician Pallavi Patel gifted $50 million to Nova Southeastern University to expand their programs in osteopathic medicine and health care sciences, the fourth largest gift by an Indian philanthropist in the United States. Patel has committed an additional $150 million to build a Tampa campus for Nova, which will rent the facilities from the donors.

Financial Advisors Chandrika Tandon and Ranjan Tandon’s $100 million gift to New York University is the second largest by an Indian to a U.S. institution. Photo: New York University

Last year, Chandrika Tandon, CEO of the financial advisory firm Tandon Capital Associates, and her husband Ranjan Tandon, chairman of the hedge fund Libra Advisors, gifted $100 million to New York University’s Polytechnic School of Engineering, which was renamed the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Venture Capital Fund Manager Kavitark Shriram and his wife Vidjealatchoumy Shriram gifted $57 million to Stanford University in 2014 to construct the Shriram Center for Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering.

Indians have made at least 15 gifts over $10 million to U.S. institutions since 2000, with four of them — Rajen Kilachand, Kiran and Pallavi Patel, Monte Ahuja and Raj Vattikuti — making multiple eight figure gifts. Collectively, the 15 gifts top $511 million.

Largest Gifts by Indian American Philanthropists

• $115 million in 2017 by Rajen A Kilachand, chairman of Dubai-based Dodsal Group, a mining, construction, manufacturing, and trading conglomerate, to Boston University to establish the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering.
• $100 million in 2015 by Chandrika Tandon, CEO of the financial advisory firm Tandon Capital Associates, and Ranjan Tandon, chairman of  the hedge fund Libra Advisors, to New York University’s Polytechnic School of Engineering.
• $57 million in 2014 by Venture Capitalist Kavitark Shriram and his wife Vidjealatchoumy Shriram to Stanford University for the Shriram Center for Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering.
• $50 million in 2017 by Cardiologist Kiran C Patel, chairman of America’s 1st Choice Holdings, and his wife Pediatrician Pallavi Patel to Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida for the Pallavi Patel Center for Health Sciences and the Kiran C Patel Center for Osteopathic Medicine.
• $30 million in 2007 by Monte Ahuja, chief executive officer of Transtar Industries, an automobile-parts manufacturing company in Cleveland, to University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2007.
• $20 million each in 2001 by Raj Vattikuti, founder of Covansys Corp., a global consulting and technology services company, to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.
• $20 million each in 2001 by Raj Vattikuti, founder of Covansys Corp., a global consulting and technology services company, to William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.
• $20 million in 2002 by Sycamore cofounder Gururaj Deshpande and his wife Jaishree Deshpande to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, to establish the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.
• $20 millon in 2007 by Krishna Singh, chief executive officer of Holtec International, a Marlton, N.J., company that makes storage equipment for nuclear waste from power plants, for a nanotechnology center at the University of Pennsylvania.
• $13.8 million by Lalit Bahl, manager of the Speech Recognition Algorithms Group at the IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and his wife Kavita Bahl to Stony Brook University Cancer Center to establish the to establish the Center for Metabolomics and Imaging.
• $12 million in 2013 by Satish Gupta, chief executive, and his wife Yasmin Gupta, executive vice president, of SB International, a steel company in Dallas, to the University of Dallas College of Business.
• $12 million in 2012 by Cardiologist Kiran C Patel and his wife Pediatrician Pallavi Patel to the University of South Florida to create the Kiran C Patel  College of Global Sustainability.
• $11 million in 2016 by Mani Lal Bhaumik, a physicist whose research helped develop Lasik eye surgery, to the University of California at Los Angeles to establish the Institute for Theoretical Physics.
• $10.5 million in 2009 by Shamim Dahod and her husband Ashraf Dahod, Starent Networks, a mobile wireless communications company in Tewksbury, Mass., to the Boston University School of Medicine to establish the Shamim and Ashraf Dahod Breast Cancer Research Center.
• $10 million in 2008 by Rajen Kilachand, chairman of Dodsal Group, Dodsal Group, a mining, construction, manufacturing, and trading conglomerate, to Pathfinder International, in Watertown, Mass to increase access to family-planning and reproductive-health services in Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, and Uganda.
• $10 million in 2011 by Monte Ahuja, founder of Transtar Industries, a distributor of transmission replacement parts based in Cleveland, to Cleveland State University for scholarships and endow a professorship.

See also, Indian American Physician Couple Pledge $50 to Florida College