Why I Give: Don and Ellie Knauss

For Don and Ellie Knauss, philanthropy isn’t abstract—it’s personal.

Both Knausses credit higher education with changing the course of their lives. It introduced them to mentors who inspired them, launched their careers, and the couple even met through their jobs. Don went to graduate school at IU, enlisted in the Marine Corps, and eventually landed at the top of Coca-Cola North America, a Fortune 500 company.

“I was the first in my family to go to college. My parents couldn’t afford it,” says Don, BA’76, a Highland, Ind. native.

He worked summers in the steel mills in northern Indiana, making just enough to cover tuition in the 1970s. Today, he notes, tuition costs are 10 to 12 times higher—much more than a summer job can cover.

“Seeing [rising tuition costs] over the years, it was like, how do we get more people to have access to that?” he asks. “Because IU changed my life. IU gave me that foundation to be prepared for whatever opportunity comes along.”

To Don and Ellie, education is the great equalizer and sometimes it’s just a small gap in financial aid that can really make a difference. The principle that “talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not” has guided their philanthropic mindset for decades.

“How do you get more people that have the talent and the drive to get the opportunity to do something constructive with their life?” Don says.

For more than 30 years, their answer has been consistent and focused: access to higher education through scholarships.

“A lot of the feedback we’ve gotten from our scholars is that IU was not on the agenda until they got that little extra bump in aid to be able to say ‘Yes, I can go there,’” says Ellie.

Their support does more than just help pay the bills: it changes how students experience college. It removes stress and creates space for curiosity, growth, and focus. Ellie hears that shift clearly in the letters they receive from students. The students’ gratitude often centers on a simple but powerful change: they are able to focus on school instead of worrying about finances. Many of those students, she says, are overflowing with passion and drive once that financial burden is lifted.

“Without this funding, I’d have to worry about how I’m going to pay for tuition and save up for med school,” says Maxim Poirier, a biochemistry and intelligent systems engineering student. “But with this money, I can choose how to spend some of that time that I would spend working. I can choose to do things for my community like volunteering as a track coach, planting trees, or accepting a research position that might not be paid at all.”

The couple’s most recent gift to IU will create the inaugural cohort within the College of Arts and Sciences’ Lux et Veritas Scholars Program, which is designed to provide undergraduate students with crucial experiential learning opportunities. The Knauss Family Scholarship has a goal of providing tuition assistance to 20 new students each year, which includes an experiential learning grant.

Anthony Brace, a second-year Knauss Scholar and biology/animal behavior double major, spent a summer abroad in Costa Rica working alongside other students and researchers with his experiential learning grant.

“I took a big leap of faith into something that was really scary for me,” says Brace. “Although it was something that I did really want to do—it was a new country with new people, new cultures, a new language that I'm not fluent in, new professors, and a new course that sounded pretty tough.”

Brace sees his time spent in Costa Rica as a preparation for his future career in wildlife biology—he spent his days developing a research project with his professors and fellow students. His team hiked up to 10 miles a day to listen for and observe the native wildlife, like birds, lizards, frogs, and snakes.

The trip also provided Brace with validation for his future, which is a key intent of the experiential learning component of the program.

“It made me feel like the path that I’m on is the right one for me and that I’m definitely meant to do field biology,” he says.

Don and Ellie are also the first donors to leverage the IU Foundation’s Scholarship Impact Accelerator as part of the Never Daunted campaign, which unites all IU campuses through fundraising and engagement in pursuit of a shared vision for the future. The campaign expands opportunities for students, fuels life-changing innovation, and strengthens communities across Indiana and beyond.

The Scholarship Impact Accelerator expedites support by getting scholarship funding to students more quickly. And for the Knausses, that immediacy matters.

“We’re able to see the results quicker and the students feel [the relief] faster. There’s nothing more rewarding than that,” says Ellie.

The Knausses hope that their support creates a ripple effect and that others pay it forward. To them, that cycle is the ultimate measure of success—not personal recognition, but philanthropic momentum.

“You hope down the road they pay it back. [That it] creates this cycle where people say, ‘Okay, I was helped. I’m going to help somebody else down the road,’” says Don. “A lot of the letters we get from students talk about [paying it forward], and that’s really heartening.”