Cordelia S. May had a vision that if things didn’t change, the Earth’s resources and ecosystem would not continue the way we know it. May thought that we needed to respect the beauty and balance of nature or it would not have the natural resources to supply food and other necessities for future generations.

The Colcom Foundation was the legacy to help the Earth

Cornelia Mellon Scaife was born in September 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was born into a wealthy family and attended Foxcroft Boarding School. Growing up as an heiress to the Mellon-Scaife fortune, she was one of the wealthiest young women in the U.S. This doesn’t mean her family life was happy, as her mother Sarah, was a hands-off mother who had a problem with alcohol. Cornelia and her brother Richard were taken care of by household staff and nannies.

Cornelia attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (it has since been renamed the Carnegie Mellon University). She soon left school to get married but her marriage to Herbert May didn’t last more than a couple of months. In 1973, Cornelia May married a second time to long-time friend, Robert Duggan. However, due to a series of serious corruption allegations, he committed suicide in 1974, while awaiting trial.

By now, Cornelia May had become a well-known political donor and philanthropist. Her love of the environment and overpopulation were two of the top causes she donated to. She gave a great deal of her wealth to causes she was passionate about environmentalism, birth control/family planning, overpopulation measures, and immigration issues. This was the start of the Colcom Foundation.

She was responsible for three of the nation’s top organizations, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Numbers USA, and the Center for Immigration Studies.

Colcom Foundation was created by Cordelia S. May in 1996 to carry on her vision of elevating awareness for environmental issues at age 68. It was financially funded following her death in 2005. See this page to learn more.

More about Colcom on https://fconline.foundationcenter.org/fdo-grantmaker-profile?key=COLC002