The Philanthropy 50 2009 Gift Profile: Sanford I. and Joan H. Weill

Sanford I. and Joan H. Weill: $26-million

Beneficiaries: arts, education, and health groups

Donors’ background: Mr. Weill retired in 2006 as chairman of Citigroup, a financial-services company in New York.

Mr. Weill, 76, and his wife, Joan, 75, pledged approximately $26-million to arts groups, education organizations, and health charities.

No details were available about a payment schedule.

Mr. Weill is chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall, and of the Board of Directors of the National Academy Foundation, both in New York. He also serves on the boards of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the White Nights Foundation of America, also in New York.

Mrs. Weill is chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in New York, and of the Board of Trustees of Paul Smith’s College, in Paul Smiths, N.Y. She also serves on the board of the White Nights Foundation of America.

Although The Chronicle does not count or include on the Philanthropy 50 list payments made on past pledges, in 2009 the Weills gave $170-million in cash to Weill Cornell Medical College, in New York, and to Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., to fulfill what was originally a $300-million pledge they made to those institutions in 2007.

The couple originally planned that the pledge would be paid by their estate upon their deaths, but in 2008 Cornell officials asked the Weills to pay on their pledge early so that construction of a new research building would not be stalled. The Weills and the university agreed that the $170-million payment would fulfill the full pledge.

Mr. Weill said in April that the recession prompted him and his wife to agree to make the reduced payment rather than hold on to the money, and to encourage other donors to give money to the medical school and the university.

“Lots of institutions were having problems with their investment portfolio in the second half of the year and everybody was sort of frozen and nobody was doing anything except feeling bad,” said Mr. Weill. “So I thought it was a very important time for us to do something that would be dramatic.”

—Maria Di Mento

View more profiles of donors who gave the most in 2009.