The Spokane-based Inland Northwest Community Foundation says a donor's gift of more than $1 million has enabled it to launch a new endowment fund that will benefit three Spokane nonprofit organizations in perpetuity.

Annual distributions from the fund, named the James W. & Betty E. Crow Endowment Fund, will benefit the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, Spokane Guilds' School and Neuromuscular Center, and the INWCF for its discretionary grants program.

The planned gift, totaling $1,016,277, came from the estate of longtime Spokane resident James Crow.

Crow was born and raised in Gooding, Idaho. After returning from World War II in 1945 with multiple awards, Crow and his wife, Betty, settled in Spokane. He invented a seed separating machine that he put to profitable use in his seed processing business, Crow & Co.

"Mr. Crow was a remarkable individual who touched many lives as an investor, a businessman, a husband, and a war hero," says Mark Hurtubise, INWCF's president and CEO. "It is an honor and a privilege for all of us at INWCF to be entrusted with the proceeds of his lifework and to carry out his philanthropic legacy into the future."