The Philanthropy 50 2009 Gift Profile: Elizabeth Beckwith Nilsen

Elizabeth Beckwith Nilsen: $31-million

Beneficiary: Chatham Hall

Donor’s background: Ms. Nilsen’s fortune came from investments her father, Laurance Beckwith, a stockbroker, made in American Home Products, the company that would eventually become Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

Ms. Nilsen, who was 92 when she died in 2006, bequeathed approximately $31-million in stock to Chatham Hall, a girls’ boarding school in Virginia. While Ms. Nilsen stipulated in her will that she wanted the school to use the money to establish an endowment, she placed no restrictions on which programs the endowment should support, and said the school could use the endowment’s earnings for any purpose.

The bequest is the largest donation Chatham Hall has ever received. Its Board of Trustees is in the process of deciding which programs the income from the endowment will support.

Ms. Nilsen entered the school in her junior year as a member of the class of 1931, but it is unclear if she graduated. Ms. Nilsen married the late R.A. Nilsen, who was an executive at a foam-rubber company.

She began donating sporadically to the school in 1973. Her gifts were small; over her lifetime, they totaled just $137,396. Chatham Hall officials say she told them in 2001 that she was leaving money to the school in her will, but say they had no idea the bequest would be so large.

School officials believe her $31-million bequest to Chatham Hall was the only portion of Ms. Nilsen’s estate left to a nonprofit institution.

—Maria Di Mento

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