Lily Safra to convert house deposit into multi-million pound donations
Howard Lake | 2 March 2009 | News
Philanthropist Lily Safra is to donate to ten charities all the proceeds from a deposit on the Villa Leopolda, one of the most expensive houses in the world, the sale of which has now been halted.
In the UK, King’s College, London, and Imperial College, London, will each be given a donation of €1m for neuroscience research.
Mrs. Safra said: “By transforming the purchase deposit into an act of giving, I would like to encourage all who can do so to support medical research, patient care, education, and other important humanitarian causes during these times of economic uncertainty.”
The Villa Leopolda is a large villa in the French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. The would-be purchaser has since decided not to go ahead with the transaction, leaving Mrs Safra with the deposits.
Safra is Chairwoman of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, set up by her late husband: it has given hundreds of millions of pounds to causes in over 50 countries.
The beneficiaries and the approximate amounts that they would each receive are:
€1,000,000: King’s College, London (Neuroscience Research)
€1,000,000: Imperial College, London (Neuroscience Research)
€ 7,000,000: Claude Pompidou Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease, Nice
€ 8,000,000: Institute for Brain and Spinal Cord Disorders, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris
€ 1,000,000: Sidaction: Together Against AIDS, France
€ 1,000,000: A Window to Tomorrow – A Computer for Every Child, Israel
€ 3,000,000: Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, Tel Hashomer, Israel
€10,000,000: Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University, Massachusetts
€ 2,000,000: Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, New York
€ 2,000,000: Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, Rwanda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Safra
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.