Anonymous giving is unusual, and donors who choose to go that route often do so out of a desire for privacy or due to modesty, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

The most common reasons for anonymous gifts are to minimize solicitations from other organizations, to keep information from heirs and family members, out of religious conviction, and/or out of modesty, unease, or guilt about personal wealth. Carrie Coghill, president of D.B. Root & Co., a wealth management firm in Pittsburgh, said that in her experience, people with a net worth of $1 million to $3 million give anonymously because they are concerned about what their peers might think. Those with a higher net worth just don't want the recognition. "They feel good about the fact that they can give this," said Goghill. "They're not looking for the kudos."

For several years, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University in Indianapolis has tracked gifts of more than $1 million on a quarterly basis, although it estimates its figures account for only one-fourth to one-half of the total gifts made. For the third quarter of 2004, the center found anonymous giving comprised 4.6 percent, or nineteen of the 408 gifts of more than $1 million. The largest anonymous gift made during the quarter was the $50 million given to Middlebury College in Vermont. One of the largest recent anonymous gifts came in 2001 when $360 million was given to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

A Pittsburgh-area woman who gave $250,000 to her alma mater, Chatham College, to honor administrators she had admired as a student did so anonymously because "it seemed more significant to honor the people in whose names these gifts would be, rather than having my name attached to them." The president of the college, Esther Barazzone, said as far as the school was concerned any gift is gratefully accepted, but she prefers gifts with names attached. "Seeing a person's name behind something inspires other people to give," she said. "It does help those of us who try to get people to give gifts and try to teach philanthropy to another generation."