When a wealthy person makes a large financial gift to a charity, there is often an assumption that it’s no big deal. After all, the wealthy can afford it, right?

The larger reality is that many wealthy and exceedingly wealthy persons give nothing. Wealthy or not, the generosity of a person who chooses to give should never be taken for granted.

John Hampton, who died recently, was one of Oregon’s more prominent philanthropists. His giving to the Portland Opera was celebrated by journalists and headline writers because of the incongruity of a timber baron who loved that particular art form. Hampton’s giving extended well beyond opera. To use a word we don’t hear much these days, he was a humanitarian. He was chairman of the Oregon Community Foundation and challenged it to become the state’s largest foundation. One of Hampton’s last commitments was for a library and cultural center for the Sheridan-Willamina community.

As Oregon’s major businesses are increasingly owned by out-of-state interests, it becomes less likely that we’ll find another John Hampton on the membership rolls of the Arlington Club. The shift in Oregon’s economy away from forest products to computer chips has not produced a windfall of giving from Silicon Valley’s representatives in Oregon. Jack Murdock of Tektronix, whose estate became the Murdock Charitable Trust, was home grown.

It is fashionable in some environmental circles to deride the timber industry. But the men and women who made fortunes in the woods have been very kind to Oregon. Simon Benson bought Multnomah Falls and gave it to the people. He also gave land for a high school that bears his name. The Collins family’s foundation has been a staple of Oregon philanthropy. The Eugene lumberman L.L. “Stub” Stewart, who died in 2005, was similarly generous. Kenneth Ford, who owned Roseburg Lumber Co., created a foundation whose assets rival those of the Meyer Memorial Trust. Ford created the celebrated Ford Scholars program for high school graduates.

John Hampton was a key figure in the creation of the Oregon Cultural Trust. He lent his considerable presence to the trust’s credibility with the Oregon Legislature. As a well-known Republican, that was significant. Moreover, Hampton was profoundly genuine in his advocacy for the need for a cultural trust in a state that made a historically low investment in arts and culture.

The delightful aspect of Hampton’s giving is that he was a quick study and he was quick to say “yes.” As one of his longtime associates in philanthropy said: “John made big commitments in a hurry.”

Mr. Hampton was very good to Oregon. More of us need to emulate his example.