T. Denny Sanford dies

Donate To GopherHole
Some Day...Maybe

Some Day...Maybe

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 17, 2010
Messages
3,623
Reaction score
2,303
Points
113



Some Day...Maybe said:
www.yahoo.com

‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion

The credit card magnate turned mega-donor built one of the country's largest rural health systems.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

Thought this was worthy of posting. The U never really got any of the $4 billion, did it? He must not have seen the Athletic Department as worthy of his money. He saw the University of South Dakota worthy though, didn't he?
Click to expand...
He donated enough to have the hall of fame bear his name I think
 

A controversial figure... and, for whatever reason, the guy never seemed to care much about his alma mater. There's still a couple billion dollars left in his fortune, and I'd be surprised if Gopher athletics sees much, if any, of it.
Oh well. I hope he's happy in heaven...or wherever billionaires who built their fortunes by taking advantage of the poor and gullible end up.
 


Seems to have done a lot of good for Sioux Falls - everything is Sanford out there. Rest easy King.
 

Whytetale said:
Something with naming rights and how to pay for them, I think.
Click to expand...
His demands for his name to be placed absolutely everywhere drove the officials crazy. They couldn't come to agreement on how to do that.

Sanford was a complicated individual. Too bad as he really could have done great things for the University.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Wasn't there something that happened that pissed him off with the U?
Click to expand...
Well supposedly he made a lot of demands that changed a few times and that supposedly worried the U that the demands would continue to evolve.

With a situation like the U where if he gave an enormous gift over decades managing that situation/ changing demands could be impossible and then you realize you got very little.


I thought he also had some legal issues even after all that.
 
Last edited:

The guy gave away literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars mostly in the state of South Dakota. Sanford Health Systems announced a merger with M Health Fairview here in Mn as many would recall which was shot down by the snowflakes in Minnesota because they were worried about the big bad conservatives from little bitty South Dakota coming in and being too mean to everybody. My guess is it was more our issue than his that we couldn’t figure out how to make it work where he would’ve opened up his coffers for U athletics. too. The multitude of organizations he donated to in South Dakota figured it out with no material issues.
 



Gopherchase said:
The guy gave away literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars mostly in the state of South Dakota. Sanford Health Systems announced a merger with M Health Fairview here in Mn as many would recall which was shot down by the snowflakes in Minnesota because they were worried about the big bad conservatives from little bitty South Dakota coming in and being too mean to everybody. My guess is it was more our issue than his that we couldn’t figure out how to make it work where he would’ve opened up his coffers for U athletics. too. The multitude of organizations he donated to in South Dakota figured it out with no material issues.
Click to expand...
Trying to equate merging of health systems that aren’t in the same state with donating to athletics is laughable
 

Gopherchase said:
The guy gave away literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars mostly in the state of South Dakota. Sanford Health Systems announced a merger with M Health Fairview here in Mn as many would recall which was shot down by the snowflakes in Minnesota because they were worried about the big bad conservatives from little bitty South Dakota coming in and being too mean to everybody. My guess is it was more our issue than his that we couldn’t figure out how to make it work where he would’ve opened up his coffers for U athletics. too. The multitude of organizations he donated to in South Dakota figured it out with no material issues.
Click to expand...
Good grief.
 

Gopherchase said:
The guy gave away literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars mostly in the state of South Dakota. Sanford Health Systems announced a merger with M Health Fairview here in Mn as many would recall which was shot down by the snowflakes in Minnesota because they were worried about the big bad conservatives from little bitty South Dakota coming in and being too mean to everybody. My guess is it was more our issue than his that we couldn’t figure out how to make it work where he would’ve opened up his coffers for U athletics. too. The multitude of organizations he donated to in South Dakota figured it out with no material issues.
Click to expand...
Sanford has essentially no research infrastructure. Same reason the U didn’t want to merge with Essentia. M health flirts with others to negotiate a better deal with Fairview.
 

He made his money in banking heavy into subprime credit and later moved into legacy preservation mode via big money philanthropy. I don’t know how you balance preying on the desperate and dumb with 79% credit cards (no wonder he gave back to South Dakotans for their friendly usury laws) with the gifts/naming rights deals or whatever you want to call them in his later years. Nobody’s perfect.
 



GooningGopher said:
Sanford has essentially no research infrastructure. Same reason the U didn’t want to merge with Essentia. M health flirts with others to negotiate a better deal with Fairview.
Click to expand...
Yeah I never understood Stanford health thinking the u hospital was something they could cut a deal on.

“We want to acquire your hospital and possibly gut the things you like about it….. how about it? No??? I’m shocked you would say that!!!”

It was a bad match.
 
Last edited:

GooningGopher said:
Sanford has essentially no research infrastructure. Same reason the U didn’t want to merge with Essentia. M health flirts with others to negotiate a better deal with Fairview.
Click to expand...
They do, actually. A lot of what T Denny donated was to establish Sanford as a premier research institution. I don't know that they've achieved "premier" status but they've definitely jumped big into the research game.
 

Gopherchase said:
The guy gave away literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars mostly in the state of South Dakota. Sanford Health Systems announced a merger with M Health Fairview here in Mn as many would recall which was shot down by the snowflakes in Minnesota because they were worried about the big bad conservatives from little bitty South Dakota coming in and being too mean to everybody. My guess is it was more our issue than his that we couldn’t figure out how to make it work where he would’ve opened up his coffers for U athletics. too. The multitude of organizations he donated to in South Dakota figured it out with no material issues.
Click to expand...
Sanford Health is not T Denny Sanford.
 

swede2 said:
They do, actually. A lot of what T Denny donated was to establish Sanford as a premier research institution. I don't know that they've achieved "premier" status but they've definitely jumped big into the research game.
Click to expand...
Obviously this isn’t everything but Sanford got about 8 million in nih granting (per nih site) in 2025. Minnesota is about 370 million. It’s not even remotely in the same stratosphere as the national research institutes and is more along the lines of like HealthPartners in town (about 10 million). Sanford is no longer nonexistent like it used to be however and that is a good thing as there are things that can be best studied there in the populations that live there
 

upnorthkid said:
Obviously this isn’t everything but Sanford got about 8 million in nih granting (per nih site) in 2025. Minnesota is about 370 million. It’s not even remotely in the same stratosphere as the national research institutes and is more along the lines of like HealthPartners in town (about 10 million). Sanford is no longer nonexistent like it used to be however and that is a good thing as there are things that can be best studied there in the populations that live there
Click to expand...
Right. It's my no means "premier" but it isn't non-existent. It also doesn't have the same infrastructure as a University. It is a health system. Granted, health systems can and do bring in huge sums of research money (see Mayo Clinic) but the mission of a health system are not the same. The original point, though, was that in fact Sanford has research infrastructure. Of the $2 billion Sanford has given the health system, half of that was for research. That's not nothing.
 

swede2 said:
They do, actually. A lot of what T Denny donated was to establish Sanford as a premier research institution. I don't know that they've achieved "premier" status but they've definitely jumped big into the research game.
Click to expand...
I am not sure how the non-profit structure works but I suspect it’s a similar dynamic to what all the smaller rural serving population do where they apply for grants and get a modest amount to do some interesting things with that targeted population.

If I recall, they only had a modest relationship with USD (I think 3 co-training PhD programs). This makes it tough to become a decent research institute because the velocity of papers will be much lower and the probability of getting grants will be lower with the lack of research productivity.
 



GophersInIowa said:
Wasn't there something that happened that pissed him off with the U?
Click to expand...
Whytetale said:
Something with naming rights and how to pay for them, I think.
Click to expand...
#2Gopher said:
His demands for his name to be placed absolutely everywhere drove the officials crazy. They couldn't come to agreement on how to do that.

Sanford was a complicated individual. Too bad as he really could have done great things for the University.
Click to expand...
A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Well supposedly he made a lot of demands that changed a few times and that supposedly worried the U that the demands would continue to evolve.

With a situation like the U where if he gave an enormous gift over decades managing that situation/ changing demands could be impossible and then you realize you got very little.
Click to expand...
1983 said:
He really liked Jerry Kill. Somebody stepped in and offended TD which cooled him off. A blunder by the AD of that time.
Click to expand...
I recall that there were issues related to naming rights and the timing of Sanford's gifts. The U wanted a sizeable donation to "get the ball rolling" and he wanted to parse out the money over time. There were concerns that he wanted to maintain a level of control over the project that was untenable to the U.

Sanford also envisioned a far less grand project that would have yielded a far less substantial end product. The stadium we have now is a gem. The stadium tied to Sanford's money would not have been.
 

1983 said:
He really liked Jerry Kill. Somebody stepped in and offended TD which cooled him off. A blunder by the AD of that time.
Click to expand...
A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Jerry quit….

I don’t get how that’s on the AD.
Click to expand...
Jerry quit in 2016. Sanford's decision not to donate any more money to the U was reported back as far as 2013. It had nothing to do with Jerry Kill.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Yeah I never understood Stanford health thinking the u hospital was something they could cut a deal on.

“We want to acquire your hospital and possibly gut the things you like about it….. how about it? No??? I’m shocked you would say that!!!”

It was a bad match.
Click to expand...
The U is poorly managed in many areas.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
I recall that there were issues related to naming rights and the timing of Sanford's gifts. The U wanted a sizeable donation to "get the ball rolling" and he wanted to parse out the money over time. There were concerns that he wanted to maintain a level of control over the project that was untenable to the U.

Sanford also envisioned a far less grand project that would have yielded a far less substantial end product. The stadium we have now is a gem. The stadium tied to Sanford's money would not have been.
Click to expand...
This is how I remember it. He seemed to think $35 million was going to build a Big 10 Stadium, wanted his name on it in perpetuity, and obnoxious control over the project.
 

GooningGopher said:
I am not sure how the non-profit structure works but I suspect it’s a similar dynamic to what all the smaller rural serving population do where they apply for grants and get a modest amount to do some interesting things with that targeted population.

If I recall, they only had a modest relationship with USD (I think 3 co-training PhD programs). This makes it tough to become a decent research institute because the velocity of papers will be much lower and the probability of getting grants will be lower with the lack of research productivity.
Click to expand...
USD is a pretty small university and the med school is very small. There are certainly ties between the med school and the medical center (along with the Avera Health System), but it is not an integrated resource like the U and the University hospital.
 



Some Day...Maybe said:
www.yahoo.com

‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion

The credit card magnate turned mega-donor built one of the country's largest rural health systems.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

Thought this was worthy of posting. The U never really got any of the $4 billion, did it? He must not have seen the Athletic Department as worthy of his money. He saw the University of South Dakota worthy though, didn't he?
Click to expand...
Man his obit is anything but "humble". Geez, it's nice that he gave but talk about carrying on.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
Jerry quit in 2016. Sanford's decision not to donate any more money to the U was reported back as far as 2013. It had nothing to do with Jerry Kill.
Click to expand...
Yeah I think there is a lot of misremembering going on and honestly…. Not sure Jerry got along with many other outside strong personalities much too.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom