KC philanthropist dies at 90

James Stowers Jr., a prominent philanthropist and founder of Kansas City-based American Century Investments, died of natural causes on Monday at age 90, the Kansas City Business Journal reports.

American Century, which Stowers founded in a one-bedroom apartment in Kansas City with $100,000 from 24 investors, today has about $141 billion in assets under management and 1,300 employees worldwide.

Stowers, along his wife Virginia, used his business success to donate billions of dollars to charities or foundations, earning them ninth spot on the Forbes magazine list of Biggest Givers, released in 2011. Their biggest charitable investment came after Stowers was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1987 and his wife had surgery for breast cancer in 1993. The pair created a $2 billion endowment to found the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in 1994, a nonprofit biomedical research organization dedicated to researching the causes, treatment and prevention of diseases, according to the journal.

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