Social Studies

Constance M. Silver grew up without indoor plumbing, electricity, or a telephone, but even

when she was very young she demonstrated a desire to help others even less fortunate. When she was 6 years old, Ms. Silver’s Brownie troop made art projects out of leaves and delivered them to a home for impoverished elderly people near her hometown of North Windham, Me.

“I became obsessed with bringing them things — I brought them everything I could find,” she says. “I remember a lady saying later on, ‘Well, aren’t you the little social worker,’ and I thought that sounded like a good thing.”

The good thing eventually became Ms. Silver’s career and passion, and now she hopes more people will benefit from the skills that social workers offer. In August, Ms. Silver and her husband, Martin, pledged $50-million to the School of Social Work at New York University, which was renamed for them in honor of the gift. Ms. Silver, 68, graduated from the school in 1978, and Mr. Silver, 73, graduated from the university’s Stern School of Business in 1958. The gift, believed to be the largest to a school of social work, will support scholarships for students interested in helping minorities, endow a professorship in poverty research, support the school’s operations, and provide initial support to create an institute that incorporates the expertise of social workers into research on poverty.

“I have no brothers, I have no sisters. The school is my family,” says Ms. Silver, who has served on the university’s board since 2003. “I have more than I need. The right thing for me to do is to help in an area I know well and I know where the needs are.”

While some people have groused online about why the gift doesn’t directly benefit poor people

Martin and Constance M. Silver (No. 39) Total Committed in 2007: $50-million Recipient: School of Social Work at New York University

in Ms. Silver’s home state of Maine, social-work leaders applaud its wider purpose and the attention it is shining on the field.

“Social work brings a different perspective oftentimes to social problems than perhaps other disciplines do because we are always looking at the person and the environment and the interface of the two,” says Elizabeth J. Clark, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers, in Washington. “This is a really great way to highlight the need for the profession.”

‘Get It Yourself’

The gift has its roots in the Silvers’ experience of growing up poor and working class, and their desire to give others in the same situation a leg up. Mr. Silver’s blue-collar family lived in a Bronx tenement; his father worked in a commercial laundry and later for an electrical company. Ms. Silver’s father, a typewriter repairman, sat her down at age 8 and said, “I am never going to have any money, and if you want some, you are going to have to get it yourself,” she recalls.

Throughout her elementary, middle, and high-school years Ms. Silver held a series of jobs, including delivering newspapers, running her own taxi service, and working in a bakery; she proudly displays a muscle still prominent in her forearm from pumping jelly into doughnuts.

While Mr. Silver served as a company clerk at the tail end of the Korean War and attended New York University on the GI Bill, college was out of Ms. Silver’s financial reach, and she made other plans instead. As a child, a New Yorker who rented a summer home in Maine took her to the city, where she attended a jazz concert in Central Park and fell for the majestic view of the tall buildings circling its greenery. She saved her money to move there and arrived at age 17 with $200 in her pocket, determined to follow the advice of a magazine article and become an airline stewardess.

While training for that career, Ms. Silver met her future husband; inseparable after he sent violets following their first date, they have been together 50 years. Each worked a variety of jobs, including freight-elevator operator for him and airline sales manager, as well as voice-over artist for television and radio commercials for her. When Mr. Silver founded a successful business making wigs, Ms. Silver took the opportunity to finally matriculate at college. At the suggestion of a friend, she decided to concentrate on social work and enrolled in New York University at age 34.

Despite a 4.0 average, she was discouraged from applying to law school after she graduated — when she spoke to a New York University law student about the school, he said her age and gender would prevent her from finding a job — and Ms. Silver instead received a master’s degree from New York University and a doctorate from Union Institute & University, in Cincinnati, in social work. In 1993, the New York chapter of the National Association of Social Workers gave her an award for her work with AIDS patients.

“Had I gone into law, I would have gone into family law and would have been doing guardian ad litem and social-work kind of things anyway, because that Brownie was still in me,” she says. “It all worked out wonderfully.”

A subsequent business venture of Mr. Silver’s, as a founding partner of a plasma-collection company, also worked out wonderfully for the couple, who now divide their time among homes in Connecticut, Florida, Maine, and New York. When the company was sold to the British government in 2002, the Silvers’ share came to about $110-million, says Ms. Silver. Mr. Silver serves as chairman of the company, DCI Biologicals, in Queens Village, N.Y.

An ‘Orphan’ Cause

Despite where Mr. Silver earned his degree and how he made his fortune, he says the couple never considered giving a large contribution to the Stern School of Business.

“I was committed to Connie’s school,” says Mr. Silver. “There is a lot of support for other schools. The social-work school is kind of like an orphan, and it does such good work.”

Indeed, megagifts to higher education for schools of law and business are common, while similar gifts for social work are scarce.

“We don’t have too many social workers that could give $50-million,” says Ms. Clark, who notes that the median salary of social workers is $47,640, meaning half earn more and half earn less, according to a survey the group conducted in 2006.

When Suzanne England came to NYU’s School of Social Work as its dean in 2001, its endowment totaled $300,000. “Fifty million is extraordinary,” says Ms. England. “It’s been a very long time since anybody has said, ‘This is where we need to make an investment.’”

The investment is necessary, as the 600,000 social workers in the United States affect about 10 million lives, Ms. Clark says, based on research her group has conducted. Their work helps a variety of people, including those who are elderly, mentally ill, former prisoners, substance-abuse addicts, and people simply struggling to make ends meet.

“A lot of people don’t understand social work,” she says. “They think of us as just taking away children in broken homes.”

The Silvers’ gift also sends a message to other donors that the social-work profession needs support, says Debra A. LaMorte, senior vice president for development and alumni relations at New York University.

“Finding donors in social work is a challenge,” she says. “What Connie has done, she understands that in order for the caliber of education and training to go on, she needed to step up.”

The gift is part of the university’s $2.5-billion campaign, which ends in August.

The social-work school’s three previous largest gifts, each for $1-million, also came from Ms. Silver. Some of the money from those earlier gifts is now used to provide $5,000 fellowships annually to 15 black students at the school who express a desire to work in black neighborhoods after graduation. Ms. Silver, who helps select recipients and also meets with them, hopes the students become inspirations for other people where they work.

“It’s lovely to have Michael Jordan as a role model, but how many Michael Jordans can there be?” she says. “You could have a nice social worker as a role model. You could conceivably get there.”

While Ms. Silver says her 98-year-old mother, who still lives in Maine, does not fully grasp the vast size of the gift, other people in the state have taken notice. When an article about the gift appeared in the Portland Press Herald, some readers posted comments on its Web site deriding Ms. Silver for not directing her wealth toward immediate needs or scholarships in her home state.

One reader wrote, “$50-million to a NY school to ‘study’ poverty? I’m sure those that go to bed hungry at night are very excited about this.” Other readers defended her, writing she had “every right” to give to a school for social work, rather than a social-service agency.

Ms. Silver brushes off the negative comments.

“People said, ‘Why don’t you give to the food banks?’” she says. “It’s like putting a Band-Aid on instead of trying to do corrective surgery. I’m ready for corrective surgery.”

The planned McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Practice (the name combines Ms. Silver’s maiden name — McCatherin — and her married name) seeks to learn from the experiences of everyday social workers to prompt changes in the school’s curriculum in order to teach students more effectively.

The feedback from social workers, and the research on poverty from one of the school’s professors, will also spur suggestions for changes in government policies to provide better assistance to the people social workers serve, says Ms. England, the school’s dean.

The first topic the institute will tackle involves developing a curriculum on financial literacy.

“We are connecting practice to policy rather than taking the 5,000-foot view,” says Ms. England.

Helping Animals

While NYU remains the centerpiece of the Silvers’ philanthropy for now, Ms. Silver says that other charities, including the Union Institute, will receive gifts from their estate.

The couple also contributes smaller amounts to other causes that emphasize helping others.

Three years ago they donated $100,000 to the Humane Society of Greater Miami/Adopt-a-Pet for a multipurpose classroom.

While Ms. Silver is an animal lover — she has three dogs, including an adopted pit bull — the gift aims to help children reap the benefits of befriending animals.

“Research shows if we teach children at an early age to show kindness to an animal, that can be translated into kindness to humans,” says Emily Marquez, the group’s executive director. “Many children in the inner city see dogs roaming around the streets, but have not had that type of relationship with an animal.”

The Silvers have also made a $25,000 commitment to pay for a student at City College of New York to attend a program that combines an undergraduate degree and medical school. The student then repays the award by working for two years in a part of the state with a shortage of doctors.

Over the years the couple, who decided not to have children, has also helped a dozen or so family members and others, including a busboy they met at a restaurant and later got to know, attend college.

“People who have a college education will have a better life,” says Mr. Silver. “This is a gift they keep for the rest of their lives.”

Teaching Students

Ms. Silver’s long and positive history with New York University led to the $50-million gift. It was “not a case where she fell in love on the first date,” says Ms. LaMorte, the university fund raiser.

Since Ms. Silver’s student days, she has supported the university in myriad ways — donating back her salary when she worked in the School of Social Work as an adjunct professor for a dozen years, opening her home to gatherings designed to groom the next generation of its trustees, and recruiting donors.

She continues to stay involved by teaching a class on diagnostics to students from New York University and other institutions when she is in New York, and she plans to be very involved in how her gift will be used.

“I feel sorry for NYU,” says Ms. Silver with a smile. “If they thought I would be passive and give them money and go sit in my rocking chair, it’s not going to happen.”