A Small Ind. Community Foundation Is Stunned by a $150-Million Gift

For the 56 years he was alive, Guy David Gundlach was the proverbial hometown boy who made good. But very few people in his hometown of Elkhart, Ind., knew how good.

Before he died last year of a heart attack, the local newspaper reported that he had made some money in the insurance business and produced a movie with three legendary actors. But even his mother didn’t know the extent of his wealth.

Peter McCown, president of the Elkhart County Community Foundation, says that when he visited Marge Swift in the living room of Mr. Gundlach’s childhood home to tell her that her son had left the charity a substantial sum, she was stunned to learn he had donated $114-million and control of 10 houses he owned around the world, probably worth $40-million.

Crazy About Travel

Mr. Gundlach’s desire to work overseas was sparked at the age of 12, when his grandmother sent him on a monthlong trip around the world with high-school students. It took him to China, Egypt, and Russia.

Proficient in technology and keen to keep traveling, Mr. Gundlach graduated from Chapman College in 1979 and went to work for IBM in Southern California. His goal: a job with Lloyd’s of London, the storied insurance company.

He got his wish. He led technology efforts at Lloyd’s for 15 years before striking out on his own in 1997 to found Hastings Direct, an online car-insurance company in Bexhill-on-Sea, England. Nine years later, he sold the company to the Insurance Australia Group for more than $220-million.

Mr. Gundlach moved back to California to pursue his long-harbored dream of making films. He met Dean Zanuck, the scion of a dynasty of Hollywood producers. Together they produced the 2010 film “Get Low,” about a recluse who throws a funeral for himself—while still alive—during the Great Depression, starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, and Sissy Spacek.

Despite a high-flying, globe-trotting career, Mr. Gundlach always returned to Elkhart every summer to visit his mother and reconnect with old friends. Among them was Liz Borger, a Wells Fargo financial adviser who was a high-school classmate and board member at the foundation. Mr. Gundlach asked Ms. Borger to manage his mother’s finances, and because of their friendship, he included the foundation in his will in 2009.

It was during a visit home last summer when he met with Mr. McCown to discuss his giving plans. Mr. McCown recalls that even though he pressed Mr. Gundlach for direction, the donor declined.

“Usually somebody who makes a gift like this, they have pretty strong feelings about how it gets used,” Mr. McCown says. “And he literally gave me a pat on the shoulder and a wink and said, ‘Kiddo, as I understand, your foundation exists to do good in my hometown. Seems to me you guys are better qualified to make those decisions for me than I am.’”

Seeking Ideas

Until early this year, Mr. McCown did not know the size of the gift or that the foundation was named the sole charitable beneficiary of Mr. Gundlach’s estate and received the lion’s share of his fortune. The donor was a bachelor who had no children. His father and older brother died many years ago.

The foundation has already received $114-million from Mr. Gundlach’s estate and will soon gain titles to all his properties—the sales of which, Mr. McCown estimates, may add up to $40-million to the bequest.

But such a large gift can bring difficulties, Mr. McCown cautions. “One of the challenges we face is that our citizenry is only about 200,000 people. All of this money has to be given thoughtfully away in a fairly small community,” he says. “How do we make sure that we intelligently administer Dave’s philanthropy in such a way that it doesn’t do harm—do harm to either the charitable behavior of our other citizens or to the not-for-profit community?”

To that end, the fund is seeking ideas from local residents about how to use the money. Mr. McCown has also sought advice from other grant makers, such as the Erie Community Foundation, which got an anonymous gift of $100-million in 2007.

Mr. McCown says Mr. Gundlach hoped that his gift made others’ wishes a reality. He says the donor reminded him of another globe-trotting dreamer.

“He resembled to me a Richard Branson,” the British tycoon and world-record chaser, says Mr. McCown. “He was Japanese when he was in Japan and he was Middle Eastern when he was in the Middle East. It was all genuine.”