In that year, 1965, Loker became one of the founders of the
California Museum of Science and Industry. Along with Catherine Edgerton and Mattie Kinsey, among others, they established The Muses, a group of women dedicated to supporting the facility. The museum would name individual areas and buildings in honor of Edgerton, Loker, and Kinsey. As an heir to the StarKist fortune, Loker and her husband supported USC with more than $30 million in donations over the years. In 1977, they were the primary donors for the hydrocarbon research institute of USC, donating $15 million for the project. The
Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Hydrocarbon Institute, dedicated in 1979, was the first university facility of its kind in the United States, and was named in their honor in 1984. In 1983, to assist
George A. Olah, future winner of the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in his research, they endowed the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Chair in Organic Chemistry for him with a $1 million donation. They simultaneously gave a matching donation to Harvard to establish an English chair. Interested in education and opportunities, the couple created the Donald and Katherine Loker Foundation in 1986. Through the foundation, they contributed to the
California Hospital Medical Center, the California Science Center, the
Los Angeles Music Center, and other organizations, such as the
U.S. Olympic Team. The following year, they donated $500,000 toward completion of the student union at USC. They were founding members of the foundation to create the
California State University, Dominguez Hills, and donated funds to build a new
student union for the school. The Donald P. Loker Cancer Treatment Center of the California Hospital Medical Center was renamed in her husband's honor and they continued to support it over the years. When her husband died in 1988, Loker continued with their philanthropy. In the late 1980s, she donated funds for the construction of the
California Academy of Mathematics and Science, a magnet school operated on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills. In 1990, she gave $7 million to develop and construct the Katherine Bogdanovich Loker Wing of the hydrocarbon research institute at USC. In the 1990s, she funded the Katherine Bogdanovich Loker Commons, in the lower level of Memorial Hall at Harvard. She provided funding to renovate the
Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, rebuild the Memorial Hall tower, and support women's athletics at Harvard. The main reading room of the Widener Library was named in her honor for donations totaling approximately $30 million to the university. In 1993, she endowed a fund for California State University, Dominguez Hills, with a $200,000 gift, the largest merit scholarship in the school's history at that time. In 2001, Loker donated $3.4 million to USC's athletics department to build the Katherine B. Loker Track and Field Stadium. The following year, she gave $4 million to expand the USC student center, which was named the Katherine B. and Donald P. Loker Student Union. Loker met with officials at the California Hospital Medical Center in 2003 to discuss the need in
Downtown Los Angeles for a health center for women. She donated $1.5 million to the hospital to establish a
neonatal intensive care unit and $3.5 million toward building a women's center. A good friend of
Richard and
Pat Nixon, she donated $7 million to build an addition replicating the
East Room of the
White House for the
Richard Nixon Library in
Yorba Linda, California. Opened in 2004, the addition to the library was officially known as the Katherine B. Loker Center. She donated $1.5 million in honor of her husband to establish the Donald P. Loker Acting Fellowship at the USC School of Theatre in 2006. ==Awards and honors==