Gensler and Amazon are among the donors who have gifted $4.7 million to the California College of the Arts (CCA). The funds will be used to support diversity, equity, and innovation in the arts and design field.

CCA received a $1 million gift from the Gensler family and an additional $1 million gift from Gensler as a practice; donations which will establish the M. Arthur Gensler Jr. Center for Design Excellence. According to the college, the newly-established center will “support and enrich learning, teaching, and research in CCA’s Architecture Division” with a focus on supporting students from diverse backgrounds through “tuition scholarships, mentoring, and career development support.”

The donation will extend over ten years, with the first cohort of Gensler Center scholarship recipients set to receive awards this year.

The remaining $2.7 million in donations to the CCA was received from Amazon ($100,000), Z SUPPLY Foundation ($100,000), and an anonymous donor ($2.5 million). The Amazon contribution will be used to establish the Amazon CCA Scholarships, which will provide $100,000 to two CCA students from the Bay Area. The two students, one studying game arts and the other studying fashion design, will each receive $50,000 over four years.

A scholarship will also be established in the name of the Z SUPPLY Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the online clothing retailer co-founded by a CCA alum. The foundation has pledged $100,000 to support “students who bring diverse experiences, ideas, and creative work to the CCA community” in the fields of fashion, art, and design.

A final gift of $2.5 million from an anonymous donor based in the Bay Area will support full four-year scholarships for twenty students from low-income backgrounds over the course of eight years, including tuition and on-campus housing.

The CCA gifts are the latest in a series of high-profile donations to architectural academic institutions this year. In August, Moshe Safdie donated his entire archive to McGill University, while in May, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel offered to repay the student loans of the 2022 graduating class of the Otis College of Art and Design.

In February, meanwhile, the UT Austin School of Architecture received a $1 million donation from the son of John S. Chase, honoring the university’s first Black graduate, and the first Black licensed architect in the state of Texas.