When Donald “Don” August ’64, P’01 first stepped foot on College Hill, he knew he was going to get a world-class education at Brown. What he didn’t expect was how formative that education would be in shaping both his personal and professional paths.

As a student, he dove into his studies as a mathematics concentrator, which would become the springboard for his subsequent business degree from Harvard University and from there his career. But mathematics and business weren’t Don’s only interests.

“I ended up taking many, many courses in literature,” he says. “I can think of courses in Melville, the American novel, Russian literature…I still have many of my old paperbacks lying around the house.”

After Brown and graduate school, Don embarked on an accomplished career in investment management. In 1981, he had the good fortune to be part of a group that started a new, independent management company that has been a success over the past four decades. So when Don and his wife, Nancy—also a retired financial executive—found themselves considering how they wanted to give back, they knew Brown would be part of their plans.

“There is no end of problems in this country that you could give money to,” Don says. “But, I think providing people with a high-quality education to handle those problems is the most effective use of my philanthropy.”

Don and Nancy now employ multiple strategies to support Brown, including naming the University as a beneficiary of their pension and profit-sharing plans and funding a charitable remainder unitrust that gives them a stream of income for life while ensuring that their estate will fund their chosen initiatives at Brown.

And the family’s philanthropy doesn’t stop at one generation. Don and Nancy’s son and daughter-in-law, Nathaniel August ’01 and Kyuhey August ’01, have now found several ways to support Brown, including establishing a charitable lead annuity trust.

The couple—both economics concentrators and financial executives who met during a class with Professor Barrett Hazeltine—especially wanted to give back through faculty support. They recently created the August Family University Professorship in Economics, honoring the impact of the Brown faculty members who helped shape their experiences on campus.

“Our professors were so welcoming and accessible. They weren’t just on the podium,” says Kyuhey. “I was able to walk into any of their office hours. Many classes were small enough that you could actually converse in class.”

When they were beginning to consider their giving options, the couple emphasized the importance of wanting to concentrate their efforts.

“Whatever your bandwidth is, whatever your resources are, you can never give to everything,” says Kyuhey. “But think about the top two or three things that you really care about and feel like it’s worth supporting. There are really wonderful aspects to channeling your efforts on those few opportunities and trying to make an impact.”

And although many people don’t begin to seriously consider philanthropy until later in life, Nathaniel and Kyuhey encourage their peers to start thinking about the ways they can make a difference right now.

“There are real areas of need at the University today,” says Nathaniel. “And while I’m sure there will be wonderful ways to support the University decades from now, those areas of need exist today. And so, to the extent that you have the interest and the resources and the time to give back to the University now, it’s just never too soon to do so.”