Support for Basic Research from Private Foundations

I recently learnt about the existence of a new centre of excellence in Denmark devoted to topics close to me research area. Anna and I know basically all the consortium members very well. These people have been collecting centre-of-excellence funding from Danish governmental funding bodies before and on a regular basis. A very interesting aspect of this CoE is that this time around the 25 million DKK (roughly 458 million ISK at today's exchange rate) are being provided by a private foundation, The Villum Kann Rasmussen Foundation. (See also this page to find out what other things they fund.)

Wouldn't it be good to have a similar foundation in Iceland supported by a consortium of Icelanders who made it big and want to support the scientific development of their country? This is daydreaming, I know....