Nobel Winner Smoot Donates Prize to Charity PDF Print E-mail
Second UC Laureate To Establish Fund at East Bay Community Foundation

March 22, 2007, Oakland, CA -- Astrophysicist George Smoot has become the second University of California, Berkeley (UCB) Nobel prize winner to convert his prize money into a charitable fund at the East Bay Community Foundation.

“We commend Professor Smoot for his generosity,” said Foundation Interim President Karen Stevenson, “and we welcome what we believe to be a growing confidence in us exhibited by the academic and scientific community.”

Smoot’s work confirming the “Big Bang” theory of the origin of the universe earned him the prize at the Nobel ceremony December 10 in Stockholm, Sweden. He has converted the money to a “donor advised fund” at the Foundation, which manages almost $270 million in charitable funds for individuals, families, businesses and other organizations.

A donor advised fund is held by the Foundation in the name of the donor, who then recommends grants from the fund to charities at any time. The Foundation provides assistance with tax implications, all the grant-making paperwork, and provides research and results tracking if requested by the donor.

According to Smoot, his new fund will be used to further the cause of science education and training by devoting it to fellowships for graduate and post-doctoral students. He also said he has arranged with the University of California, Berkeley Foundation for matching grants to establish a center providing science training for high-school students as well as continuing cosmology research.

“My scientific work has been all about seeds growing under gravity to galaxies and clusters of galaxies into the Universe,” said Smoot, author of the popular book, Wrinkles in Time. “Using Nobel prize funds to assist good causes is about joining with others to grow a critical mass of philanthropy in the East Bay and elsewhere -- like the ‘Big Bang.’”



Smoot joins five other prominent professors and scientists at UCB and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory doing philanthropic work with the East Bay Community Foundation, including economics Nobel Laureate Daniel McFadden, who converted his prize winnings into a donor advised fund at the Foundation in 2000. McFadden was awarded the prize that year for his work in “microeconometrics,” the study of how individuals and households make economic choices.

“I do not think of philanthropy in abstract terms, as a moral imperative or as a prerequisite for a virtuous life,” said McFadden. “I think of it in personal terms, helping family and helping your community as your extended family.”

Long-time UCB economics Professor Richard Gilbert, a former chair of the department, has maintained a donor advised fund with the Foundation since 2000. Gilbert was the first recipient of the annual Berkeley Center for Law and Technology Award for contributions to the development of law and public policy and is a former Chief Economist of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The East Bay Community Foundation makes it easy and fun to contribute to worthwhile causes and organizations,” said Gilbert. “That’s been my experience in working with them to make more than 40 grants from our fund.”

UCB Mathematics Professor Elwyn Berlekamp, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999, has held a charitable fund at the Foundation since 1985. Berlekamp founded a company, Cyclotomics, Inc., that developed error-correcting technology for computer memory and communications systems. He is also recognized as a founder of one branch of game theory, and has experienced success in money management as a result of his work in theoretical studies of commodity and financial futures.

“For more than 20 years,” said Berlekamp, “I have personally seen how the East Bay Community Foundation not only works with individual donors to present in-depth information and research on community needs, but also how it brings together diverse people who have an interest in philanthropy to fill those needs.”

And then there is legendary nuclear physicist and element hunter Albert Ghiorso, who at the age of almost 92 is still working as a scientist, having started in 1942. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he is credited with discovering at least 12 chemical elements, more than anyone else in history. He also invented the world’s first commercial Geiger counter, as well as a “groundbreaking” device to separate atomic particles by mass with improved resolution.

A giant in his field, Ghiorso established two donor advised funds at the East Bay Community Foundation on behalf of two deceased colleagues: the noted physicists J.M. Nitschke and Glenn T. Seaborg.

“I’ve seen how the East Bay Community Foundation continues to do good by helping many donors manage their philanthropy,” said Ghiorso.

Serving as an advisor to one of the charitable funds Ghiorso helped establish is UCB Chemistry Professor Emeritus John Rasmussen, currently a Participating Retiree at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who has made gifts to the East Bay Community Foundation since 1998 to support a number of charitable causes and organizations.

“My wife and I have donated through the Foundation to several charitable organizations in the East Bay,” said Rasmussen, a winner of the Atomic Energy Commission’s E.O. Lawrence Award and of the American Chemical Society’s Award for Nuclear Applications in Chemistry. “We have found the East Bay Community Foundation an excellent agency to facilitate charitable giving.”