$100-Million Pledged to Yeshiva University by Businessman on Its Board for 30 Years

Ronald P. Stanton, a New York businessman, has pledged $100-million to Yeshiva University, in New York.

The money establishes the Ronald P. Stanton Legacy, a fund that the president of the university can tap into to start new projects.

Mr. Stanton told the university he didn’t want to earmark the money for any purpose, but wanted the university to decide what to do with it. After talking to officials, he came up with the idea of setting up a fund that gave the institution flexibility to start new efforts, said Richard M. Joel, Yeshiva’s president.

Mr. Stanton, who emigrated from Germany in 1937 at age 9, turned down a scholarship to study at Yeshiva to be a rabbi. Instead, he pursued a career in business, and founded Transammonia, a fertilizer fuel, chemical, and oil company of which he is now chairman. Last year, Forbes magazine listed the corporation as the 35th-largest private company in the United States.

But Mr. Stanton did not lose touch with Yeshiva: He has served as a trustee for 30 years, longer than any other person.

Spending the Money

While Yeshiva hasn’t yet outlined exactly how it will spend the money, Mr. Joel says that the gift will be a “down payment” for the university’s growth.

“We’re building new facilities and expanding the faculty in serious ways,” he says. “The first dollars have to go into human capital — the faculty, and their research, and building that first-tier environment.”

The money may also act as a stimulus for other philanthropists to give big sums to institutions that support Jewish life. “Leaders [like Mr. Stanton] come along and remind their colleagues to make stretch gifts and capacity gifts,” Mr. Joel says. “I think his clarion call is that these are necessary investments and they need to be substantial.”

But it’s not likely that Mr. Stanton will make more donations of that size any time soon. “I don’t think he’s decided to go on a philanthropic spending spree,” says Mr. Joel.

In 2001, Mr. Stanton, who was then vice chairman of the board, was one of 10 donors who gave $10-million to Yeshiva, and before that, dedicated a gift for the university’s library in his mother’s name.

Yeshiva is officially a secular institution, but it follows the Orthodox Jewish principles on which it was founded in 1886.