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Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust (1983–1997)

Total Assets (endowment): $300 million[1]

Total Giving: $500 million

Prominent Grants: University of Virginia Molecular Biology Institute, Markey Scholar Awards. Grants were primarily to prominent universities and scholars, most commonly at Stanford, Harvard, and Yale.

Summary: The Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust (Markey Trust) was established as a limited term trust in the will of Lucille P. Markey in 1975.  The Trust distributed over $500 million in three broad categories during its fifteen year operation[2]. Lucille Markey’s interests in health meant that the Trust funded primarily biomedical institutions with an emphasis on research, as well as individual scholars. The Trust also funded general organizational grants towards the training of Ph.D.’s and M.D.’s pursuing careers in biomedical research.

Over the fifteen-year period of the Trust, 113 scholars were awarded grants from a pool of 1,203 candidates promoted by their individual institutions. The bulk of Mrs. Markey’s estate derived from a large interest in oil and gas leases inherited from her first husband Warren Wright, and drilled on the Waddell Ranch in western Texas.

Halfway through its life, the Trust increased its grant-making due to tremendous returns on investments. In addition to its original individual Markey Scholar Awards and multi-million dollar university research program grants, the Trust began funding additional biomedical institutions[3].