“The biggest thing that I see [in Harvard students] is the marriage of academic work and activist work,” he says. “If I just do one or the other, I feel like something’s missing.”

Harvard, says Carr, is one of the main reasons he works in Cambridge—a city he finds fascinating.

“I like this town,” he says. “There’s an extraordinary amount of talent, resources, and brains in this region.”

A Wide Reach

Carr’s donations have stretched from the plains of Idaho to the bustle of Harvard Square to wind-swept Afghanistan—and many places in between.

In 1999, he gave KSG $18 million to start the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Although Carr says he is still occassionally involved in projects with the Center, he says his goal with any project is to be heavily involved at first and then to gradually wean himself from day-to-day involvement.

“I’m very involved in the beginning, and then it gets handed off,” he says. “The idea is to empower people.”

“He’s an ‘idea man,’” says one of Carr’s employees, Kathryn E. Crewe. “He’s pretty hands-off and trusting.”

Carr’s initiatives have also heavily concerned his home state of Idaho, where he has invested in human rights, including his purchase of the Aryan Nations’ headquarters and its later transfer to a university, the nearby building of a human rights institute and the construction and dedication of an Anne Frank memorial.

Crewe has a mock Idaho license plate above her desk at the Carr Foundation.

Instead of the traditional slogan saying “Famous Potatoes,” it says “Idaho—The Human Rights State.”

And this, in some ways, is Greg Carr’s goal.

Crewe says Carr has become a widely recognized figure across the state for his philanthropy—what she calls a “hometown hero.”

“He’s definitely known as the human rights advocate there,” she explains.