Joan Kroc, twice: a 50 million dollar bequest to Notre Dame, and the Kroc Center on the west side

October 2003 — the bequest; 13 March 2007 — the South Bend grant announced; January 2012 — the center opened

The bequest: Joan B. Kroc, widow of Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, had no connection to Notre Dame before her giving to it began — the connection was Father Theodore Hesburgh and the cause of peace studies. The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies was established in 1986 with the first of several gifts from her; when she died in October 2003, her bequest of 50 million dollars to the university was its largest gift ever to that date, and the university's announcement put her total giving to Notre Dame at 69.1 million dollars. The bequest established the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Fund for Graduate Peace Studies. The previous largest gift in the university's history — the Mendozas' 35 million, told below — had stood for three years.

The center: Mrs. Kroc's 2003 bequest to The Salvation Army — some 1.5 billion dollars in the Army's announcement, the largest gift then ever made to a single nonprofit — funded a national program of community centers in underserved cities, each conditioned on a local match. South Bend was the only Indiana city chosen. On 13 March 2007 the city and the Army announced a grant of 40 million dollars for a Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center on the city's west side, at Western Avenue and Chapin Street — 5 million more than first allocated, half for construction and half for an operating endowment — on condition the community raise 10 million dollars as its matching share of the endowment. The City of South Bend pledged 1 million dollars that August and had already donated the 9.5-acre site, the former Alonzo Watson Park, valued at 237,500 dollars. The center's own later account describes a 70 million dollar combined capital and endowment grant from the bequest, with the community's 10 million bringing the total investment to nearly 80 million; the two figures — the 40 million of the 2007 announcement and the 70 million of the center's later description — both stand in the record, and the table carries the announced figure with the discrepancy noted here rather than resolved. Construction began in May 2010, and the 110,000-square-foot center — worship and performance space, aquatics, fitness and recreation — opened in January 2012, the only Kroc Center in Indiana. The institution's own record is in the Charities section; the gift is the subject here.

Sources:

1. University of Notre Dame news release (28 October 2003) — the 50 million dollar bequest, her total giving of 69.1 million dollars, and the institute's 1986 establishment.
2. City of South Bend news releases (13 March 2007; 14 August 2007) — the 40 million dollar grant, the 10 million dollar match, the city's 1 million dollar pledge and the donated site valued at 237,500 dollars.
3. The Salvation Army Kroc Center, South Bend — the center's own institutional account (the 70 million dollar combined grant; construction from May 2010; opening January 2012; 110,000 square feet).