KSG Public Leadership Center Receives $20M from TV Mogul

The Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government will establish a new program in social justice leadership using a $20 million gift from the estate of television mogul and philanthropist Alan L. Gleitsman, the school plans to announce today.

The gift is the largest single gift in the history of the Center and establishes an endowment for the seven-year-old institution.

The program, to be named the “Gleitsman Program in Leadership for Social Change,” will finance student fellowships, visiting scholars, and curriculum development in social activism.

Gleitsman, who made his fortune by collecting films for resale to television, sold his distribution company in 1986 and began giving away $100,000 awards to social activists each year. Gleitsman died last year at age 76.

These awards, known as the Gleitsman International and Citizen Activist awards, will now be handed down by the Center for Public Leadership. The awards have stirred occasional controversy—recipients include Ralph Nader and Jack Kevorkian.

Center for Public Leadership Director David R. Gergen said the membership of the awards committee will not change and will continue to honor what Gleitsman stood for when giving the awards.

“We ought to be daring because agents of social change are often controversial. That goes with the territory,” said Gergen, who is also a professor at the Kennedy School.

About one-third of the money will go toward the awards, according to Gergen. Another third will fund student fellowships that reward social entrepreneurship, and the last third will finance visiting scholars and other academic programs.

Cheri Rosché, Gleitsman’s partner and the secretary and treasurer of the Gleitsman Foundation, said that the idea for the gift was born over years of cooperation with the Kennedy School, which often hosted the winners of the Gleitsman awards. The 2007 International Activist Award will be presented to Sakena Yacoobi, founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning, at the Kennedy School tomorrow.

“The agreement was signed back in 1996,” Rosché said, adding that it came out of a close relationship with Albert Carnesale, who served as dean of the Kennedy School from 1991 to 1995.

Rosché said she hopes the gift will help expand the activities of the Center for Public Leadership.

“It’s really going to be their show from now on,” she said. “We hope to bring more dollars to the table to make it even bigger and better.”

Endowed gifts are administered centrally by the University, Gergen said, and schools receive an annual payout that usually comes to about 4 percent of the principal.

While this is the largest one-time gift to the Center, Gergen noted that Leslie and Abigail Wexner have been the institution’s largest overall benefactors. Leslie Wexner is the CEO of The Limited, a women’s clothing chain. The couple contributes $2.1 million annually to the Center, pledged over a period of nine years, according to Gergen.

—Staff writer David K. Hausman can be reached at dhausman@fas.harvard.edu.