Detroit Philanthropists Peter and Danialle Karmanos Give $200k to Greek America Foundation

One of the nation’s leading businessmen and his wife have made an extraordinary gift to the Greek America Foundation, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to promoting Greek culture and offering young people life-changing opportunities.

Peter and Danialle Karmanos of Detroit announced a $200,000 gift to the Greek America Foundation— specifically, to the Hellenic Legacy Scholarship Endowment Fund, which sends North American college students to Greece for a semester of study at the American College of Greece in Athens.

The gift will endow, in perpetuity, the Peter and Danialle Karmanos Scholarship, which will be given annually to a student from universities in the Detroit area.

Peter and Danialle are longtime supporters of the Foundation’s mission and understand the important work the organization is doing throughout the continent. Both giants in philanthropy in their own respective ways, they recognize the unique impact the foundation’s efforts are having on young people and wanted to lend their support.

“With an endowment, you secure the sustainability of the program for future generations. This is the long-term impact we wanted to have. We wanted to offer more Detroit-area students the opportunity to spend a semester in Greece and connect with the country, its language and its culture and people,” Peter Karmanos stated in a press announcement.

The oldest of three sons of a Greek immigrant family who owned a small restaurant in Detroit, Karmanos founded Compuware soon after finishing college, an IT company he grew to more than $1 billion in annual revenues and 7000 customers around the world, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited websites in the world. He retired from Compuware on March 31, 2013 and has since started a new software firm, Mad Dog Technology.

An avid hockey fan, he is also the majority owner and chief executive officer of the NHL’s Stanley Cup winning Carolina Hurricanes as well as Plymouth Whalers and Florida Everblades hockey franchises.

In memory of his first wife, Barbara Ann, who died from breast cancer, Peter donated tens of millions of dollars to build the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, a unique, urban-based integrated center of research, patient care and education, dedicated to the prevention, early detection, treatment and eventual eradication of cancer.

Danialle Karmanos, Peter’s wife and mother of his young children Socrates, Leonidas, Spiros Maximus and Aristides Kyros, was integral in creating and supporting this gift to the Greek America Foundation. She has served on the board of governors at Wayne State University and understands the value of supporting young people.

A successful media executive turned mom and philanthropist, she also founded Danialle Karmanos’ Work it Out, an organization dedicated to reducing childhood obesity, introducing yoga to at-risk children in urban environments and helping them live longer and healthier lives. Her work has impacted thousands of children in their beloved Detroit region.

A cornerstone of the Greek America Foundation, the Hellenic Legacy Scholarship program sends US and Canadian college students to Greece for a complete semester of study at the American College of Greece, a US accredited institution of higher learning in Athens. To date, 10 students have been awarded full-tuition scholarships.

With the Peter and Danialle Karmanos Scholarship, one student annually will be awarded a grant from the Detroit area.