$3.5 Million Gift To Fund Environmental Program at Kennedy School

UPDATED: September 12, 2014, at 2:31 p.m.

Hedge fund manager and founder of Moore Capital Management Louis M. Bacon has donated $3.5 million to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government for the creation of the eponymous Louis Bacon Environmental Leadership Program, the school announced Wednesday.

Bacon’s gift—which marks almost four months since the public launch of the HKS capital campaign in May—will fund up to five fellowships in environmental leadership at the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School.

In a press release on the school's website, Bacon credited a reliance on the future generation of public leaders in saving the environment as motivation for his donation.

“As both a country and a global community, we have inherited extraordinary natural resources from those who came before us,” Bacon said. “It is crucial that we now invest in and empower the rising generation to serve as good stewards of that sacred trust.”

HKS Dean David T. Ellwood ’75 agreed that Bacon’s donation will help the Kennedy School foster students interested in environment.

“Our shared environment grows more imperiled every day,” Ellwood said. “This program will bring to campus the kinds of emerging leaders who will serve as its most ardent and skillful stewards in the decades ahead.”

—Staff writer Forrest K. Lewis can be reached at forrest.lewis@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ForrestKLewis.