So much for building and nurturing a relationship with a potential donor. The San Diego Foundation has received $100 million from the estate of a donor with whom there was no known previous contact.
The foundation was notified in December that entrepreneur, investor, and music lover Jay Kahn, 90, had bequeathed the money. It is just shy of 10% of the $1.065 billion in total assets the foundation reported on its 2020 federal Form 990.
The first grants from Kahn’s gift include $150,000 in unrestricted grants to 10 San Diego-based music education nonprofits to advance their work with under-resourced children. A portion of Kahn’s gift will support housing and other strategic plan initiatives with $86 million set aside to establish the Jay Kahn Endowment Fund at San Diego Foundation.
A spokesperson for the foundation said the intent of the grants is to grow music appreciation in San Diego in memory of Kahn, a classical musician who played clarinet in symphonies at the University of California San Diego and University of San Diego. The $1.5 million in total grants were awarded last week at the foundation’s Board of Governors retreat and were a complete surprise to the recipients who had been invited to the retreat.
“Jay Kahn was a compassionate man who loved San Diego and wished for his legacy and estate to be used for the good of San Diego,” Mark Stuart, president and CEO of San Diego Foundation said via a statement. “We had no existing relationship with Jay until we learned that he believed San Diego Foundation would achieve his goal and honor his wishes. We are humbled by this incredible generosity, and we will honor Jay by continuing to inspire enduring philanthropy and enable community solutions to improve the quality of life in the San Diego region.”
Kahn lived in San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood from 1972 until his death in 2022. He worked in the clothing industry in the San Diego-Tijuana, Mexico region, and amassed his fortune as an entrepreneur, eventually retiring early to manage his personal investment portfolio that included early investments in Price Club, the San Diego-based predecessor to Costco, and Apple.
According to information from the foundation, Kahn befriended Sol Price and was an original investor in his firm called Price Club. His initial $25,000 investment became several million and enabled him to retire. A later investment and purchase of $250,000 of Apple stock turned into $80 million.
Kahn’s gift is one of several unsolicited gifts in recent years for San Diego Foundation, including an $8 million gift from American novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in 2020 to the San Diego COVID-19 Community Response Fund.
