served up some historic news at its annual luncheon Wednesday at the Oregon Convention Center: The creation of a new $150 million fund using the largest single gift in its 39-year history.

The creation of the fund in honor of

, the no-nonsense Oregon businessman and philanthropist who died in December at 88, will reverberate across the entire state for years, possibly decades.

The bequest by Fields may also be the largest single gift to an Oregon institution. It eclipses two of the largest single gifts of recent memory: a

made by Phil and Penny Knight in 2008 and another

.

Fields, who had never before given to the foundation and did not hint that such a landmark gift was coming before he died, left the bequest with unusually wide-open instructions to the foundation: Use it to fund the arts and education in Oregon.

The foundation is the sixth largest community foundation in America, with long-term investments currently worth $1.1 billion. Those investments are meant to produce annual donations to charities and nonprofits of all kinds across the state. A sampling of recent funding allocation, for instance, includes money given to Columbia River Community Health Services in Boardman, Josephine Community Libraries in Grants Pass, and Morrison Child & Family Services in Portland.

the foundation's president and chief executive officer, says the sheer size of the bequest and Fields' open instructions means the foundation will have to think carefully how to distribute the money for the biggest impact.

"Fred was a bright guy who didn't think of money lightly," says Williams. "He wanted this to be meaningful."

Williams says that while it's impossible to predict which institutions and programs will receive money, the foundation will follow its standard practice of considering a donor's past history of giving. Fields and his wife, Suzanne, who died in 2010, gave to a broad range of charities and arts and educational institutions in their lifetimes, including Lewis & Clark College, University of Oregon, Oregon Historical Society, Portland Art Museum and University of Portland.

Because of Fields' comprehensive giving, Williams says the money would likely be distributed various ways, including to fund academic scholarships and service programs. The foundation would also consider partnering with another institution. As an example, Williams says the foundation could collaborate with the arts-focused

to give some of the money, since the Miller foundation's area of expertise is cultural funding.

The foundation has received about $80 million in cash so far from the Fields trust, which was formed in 2009 to distribute Fields' assets to assorted charities, according to Richard A. Canaday, Fields' attorney at Miller Nash LLP. Foundation officials estimate the remainder of the gift will arrive within 18 months and that the total could exceed $150 million, depending on the sale of some remaining assets.

All of the Fields money will be deposited into the foundation's $1.1 billion endowment. The annual investment returns generated by the Fields fund -- projected to be about $6 million to $7 million -- will go to arts and education across Oregon each year.

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Oregon Community Foundation

Established:

1973 by several community leaders, primarily William Swindells

Endowment:

$1.1 billion

What it does:

A community foundation that invests and manages charitable endowment gifts from donors of every level, from one million dollars to $25,000 or less. The foundation is a statewide organization that distributes the annual investment returns generated from its endowment to all kinds of programs and services across Oregon. Those funds support a wide variety of needs and priorities, including education, health care, social services, and culture.

President and Chief Executive Officer

: Max Williams. Greg Chaillé was the foundation's president and chief executive officer for 24 years until the end of last year when he stepped down because of health reasons. He's now a strategic advisor to the foundation.

Midwestern roots

Born in Indiana in 1923, Fred Fields studied engineering at numerous colleges and universities, including Purdue University. In 1947, he joined

, founded in Ohio, which designed and produced different machines to mill lumber. Twenty-nine years later, Fields bought Coe and expanded the business, eventually selling it in 2000 to a venture capital firm.

Fields' reputation was that of a hard-nosed businessman with an affinity for efficiency who remained frugal despite amassing wealth. Friends say he had a beautiful house, for example, but not an extravagant one. Eric Hoffman says his friend held to his self-made Midwestern values and didn't boast about his business triumphs.

"He was, you might say, secretive," says Hoffman, chairman of the board of

"He never wanted to talk about money. He just did it on his own. That's the way he was."

"He was more interested in building good machinery and selling it than making a whole lot of money," says friend William Swindells, a prominent Portland businessman whose father helped found the Oregon Community Foundation. "Turns out, he wasn't spending much of it, either."

That practicality informed the way Fields chose the foundation as the biggest beneficiary of his trust.

He never gave to the foundation and hadn't dealt with it, if at all, despite his many philanthropic efforts over the years.

But over a round of golf before Fields' death, Swindells recalls that his friend asked him casually which institutions would be good beneficiaries of his money. Swindells mentioned a few places, including the foundation.

"He never had trouble making up his mind," says Canaday.

A prudent foundation

Longtime friend

believes Fields saw a bit of himself in how the foundation approached business.

"He felt the foundation would honor the breadth of his philanthropy and that it was very much in keeping with the kind of man that he was," says Hering, chairman of the Portland commercial real estate brokerage Norris Beggs & Simpson.

The Oregon Community Foundation is known as a fiscally conservative one even by the cautious standards of the philanthropic world. Its mission is also extensive as it funds all kinds of services across Oregon. And while big cash gifts to the foundation are common, most are under $50,000; some donations have been houses left by individuals who want their estate to fund a charity.

"Frankly, we earned this," says Greg Chaillé, now a strategic advisor to the foundation.

. "This is a very efficient organization," he said.

Canaday says Fields' trust made specific gifts to charities totaling $31 million, including $2 million to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; $1 million to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and SW Washington; $1 million to the Portland Art Museum; and $10 million to Lewis & Clark College, where Fields served on the board for 21 years.

The Oregon Community Foundation received the "residue" -- the remainder of the trust minus those specific gifts and administration costs.

"The gifts were intended to be a pleasant surprise," says Canaday.