A throwaway account, but:

My folks were able to invest, through one of the various early funds, $100 into Yahoo in its very first seed round (he was part of a VC fund as a ride along -- the $100 was part of $2MM that bought 1/3 of Yahoo). That $100 turned into $1M+.

This was by no means all of their assets, so they took that money and endowed a chair in engineering at a very prestigious university. Anyway, the neat thing is most engineer chairs (these are the ones that have "The Arthur and Constance Merrywhether Brockeridge IV Distinguished Chair" sort of title) go to full professors. That money from the chair frees up funds so the professor has extra annual money to work on his or her projects. It's a nice sinecure for a professor and they are a big deal.

Anyway, my folks gave the chair to the university's engineering department that it only be held by an assistant (i.e., non-tenured, junior) professor -- once they got tenure, the chair went to someone else. So the chair gives the younger professor an alternative, independent source of funds and support (and a nice title, too) to further their career early on.

Anyway, they've done lots of other great stuff, but I've always thought this one had the most style. The university gets endowed chairs all the time, but the department assumes that they mostly go to the most senior professors who don't get have a named chair. This added just a slight monkey to the works.