"This is a wonderful gift, but it doesn't mean our work is over," said Ceci Evangelista, the special assistant to the vice president of development.
But the donation is unprecedented for any University, and is more than five times larger than any gift Harvard has ever received.
The largest donation given to Harvard was $70.5 million, given by John and Frances Loeb in the 1999 capital campaign, according to Andy Tiedemann, the spokesperson for Harvard's development office.
--Staff writer Anne K. Kofol can be reached at kofol@fas.harvard.edu.