Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, is giving the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism $20 million, The New York Times reported.
The reason for such a hefty donation? Newmark said he is impressed with the school's commitment to helping students from all backgrounds.
Of the school's attendees, 17 percent are African-American, 24 percent Hispanic and 13 percent are Asian, while 45 percent received scholarships.
"You could say that they are the university for everyone," the 65-year-old said, according to the Times. "They were helping out people who, like me, really need a lot of scholarship help."
The $20 million was made possible through Craig Newmark Philanthropies and will go toward funding an endowment for the school.
In light of the donation, which was announced Monday, the school will be changing its name to the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.
Newmark has been involved with the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism since 2016, when he donated $10,000 to help the school host Electionland, an initiative aimed at major news organizations and student journalists to help them identify possible voting fraud during the presidential election.
The following year Newmark gave the school $1.5 million to help launch its News Integrity Initiative.
Newmark said he first started taking a serious interest in the field of journalism about 10 years ago and has since been actively involved in numerous campaigns.
He helped revolutionize classified advertising in 1995, when he first founded Craigslist, an online classified list that features categorized advertisements.
Over the years, Newmark has also reached out to assist several other journalism organizations including the Columbia Journalism Review, Data & Society Research Institute, First Draft, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, ProPublica, Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and the Sunlight Foundation.
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