$60-million in assets to Gordon College, they became the institution’s most-generous donors by a factor of 10. The pledge is nearly double the size of the current endowment of the college, a nondenominational Christian college near Boston.

Even though the bequest comes with no strings attached, the Fowlers, who have already made several other gifts to Gordon and are planning more, have shown an intense level of involvement in the college’s affairs. They traveled to Britain to buy the furniture and decorations that fill the lobby of Gordon’s Frost Hall, an administrative building they paid to renovate. The Californians recently purchased a home close to Gordon’s campus, which was named after them in August. And they are planning to finance several construction projects at the college, including a student lounge they intend to name after their cat, Chester.

Mr. Fowler, 71, a real-estate magnate, and his 66-year-old wife have contributed to churches, arts organizations, and other Christian colleges. But Mr. Fowler says they no longer want to do what he terms “shotgun giving,” meaning making donations of $10,000 to $25,000 to groups with which the couple does not have a significant involvement. “It really doesn’t make much difference to any organization,” he says.

The Fowlers made their first donation to Gordon — a gift of $10,000 — in the spring before their eldest grandchild, Sarah Smith, began her freshman year there in 2004. (Her brother Jeremy followed two years later.) Soon after, the couple received a phone call from Robert Grinnell, Gordon’s vice president for

Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler (No. 29)

Total Committed in 2007: $61.33-million

Key recipients: Gordon College, Dale Fowler Foundation

development. Mr. Grinnell had learned through a friend of the Fowlers’ that they had the potential to become big-time donors. He thanked them for their gift and asked if he could visit them in California.

“We’ve given quite a lot of money around the country,” Mr. Fowler says. “Nobody’s ever come to visit us.”

Mr. Grinnell’s first phone call was the start of a courtship that has blossomed into a satisfying long-term relationship. The college has found enthusiastic financial backers, the Fowlers an outlet for their ideas and energy.

Mr. Fowler, who would not disclose his net worth but hints that the couple’s support for Gordon will one day far exceed the $60-million bequest, says, “This is the beginning of a number of gifts that we’re going to make to Gordon that they don’t even know about yet.”

Humble Beginnings

Mr. Fowler grew up in Santa Ana, Calif., where his father helped run a family gravel business, and Dale Fowler became the first person in his family to attend college. A car buff, he set out to become an automobile dealer but changed his mind after an unpleasant visit to Flint, Mich., where he had planned to attend the General Motors Institute, now Kettering University. “It was so muggy I couldn’t sleep,” he recalls.

He returned to California and enrolled at Westmont College, a Christian institution in Santa Barbara, but finances were tight. After his freshman year, he moved home to attend Santa Ana Community College, then spent his last two years at what is now Chapman University, in Orange, Calif. He paid his way by selling cars and says he managed to earn more than his professors.

In the spring of his senior year, Mr. Fowler paid his last tuition bill, purchased a new car, and had $6,000 in the bank. He read in the morning newspaper that the Huntington Beach City Council had voted to clean up the town’s oil derricks. He drove there that afternoon and bought a vacant lot for $5,200, where he could build 10 apartments. “I was 21 years old,” he says, a hint of amazement in his voice.

By then, the future Mrs. Fowler had entered the picture. They met at church and spent early dates landscaping his property. In years to come, she would contribute to her husband’s business ventures in many ways, from painting apartments to advising him on major deals.

“He would run things by me,” she says, “but he had such a good mind for business, I always encouraged him.”

Mr. Fowler gradually shifted his focus to industrial business parks. He kept most of the facilities he built, and used rental income to pay for new projects rather than borrowing from banks. He made enough money to spend summers with his family at a lake house in Northern California, and later bought a large vacation property in the Berkshire Mountains, three hours from Gordon, where he maintains a collection of antique cars. (The couple purchased another home this past August, closer to the campus.)

Mr. Fowler, who is semiretired, credits the good luck of being born in Southern California, where land values have skyrocketed since World War II, as playing a key role in his success. “If I had been born in North Dakota,” he says, “it might have been different.”

Still, he does offer one maxim: “The key to success is you find a need and you fill it.” As Mrs. Fowler looks on, he explains how this simple strategy has guided not only their business maneuvers but also their support for Gordon.

“We’ve seen a need here,” he says.

A Prayer Answered

Sitting in an office at Gordon College shortly before Thanksgiving, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler listen to their grandchildren describe their experiences at the institution. Sarah and Jeremy Smith cite Gordon’s Christian orientation as a major factor in their decision to enroll.

Founded in 1889 as the Boston Missionary Training School, Gordon requires its 1,500 students to sign a statement of faith and attend chapel three times each week. Dating is permitted, but unmarried students are expected to practice abstinence, and alcohol is strictly prohibited. Faculty members approach academic subjects from a Christian perspective, and some professors begin class with a reading from Scripture or a religious discussion, a practice Ms. Smith describes as “really awesome.”

“My faith has grown tremendously in the past year and a half — more than it ever has in my life,” says Mr. Smith of his time at Gordon. His sister describes how professors have gone out of their way to be a mentor to her, fostering both intellectual and spiritual development. Asked how such testimonials influence his support of Gordon, Mr. Fowler replies: “I would guess it’ll just make the check have another zero at the end.”

The college badly needs such generosity, says R. Judson Carlberg, its president. Most of the income from its current $35-million endowment is used for scholarships. (A year at Gordon, including room and board, costs more than $30,000.) As a result, the college relies heavily on revenue from tuition to cover its operating expenses. A drop in enrollment that the institution suffered in 2005 and 2006 resulted in budget cuts.

The college struggles to recruit professors, as it cannot afford salaries that would allow faculty members to comfortably support a family in the affluent North Shore area surrounding Gordon. Some professors have working spouses, but others commute long distances from less expensive communities in northeastern Massachusetts or New Hampshire.

When Mr. Carlberg became Gordon’s president in 1992, he dreamed of raising the endowment, which was then $8.8-million, to $100-million. Since then, Gordon has begun capital projects nearly every year to update its deteriorating facilities. Fund raising for the endowment had been relatively slow until the Fowlers announced their bequest, which Mr. Carlberg described as an answer to his prayers.

“This is a truly extraordinary gift,” says John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a Washington group that represents college fund raisers. He cites a 2006 study by the Council for Aid to Education, which reported that more than 90 percent of donations to colleges and universities come with restrictions. The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Fowler made such a large gift with no strings attached, he says, exhibits a great deal of trust in Gordon College to use the money responsibly after they have died. In the meantime, the couple hopes to play a significant role at Gordon.

‘These Are My Dreams’

After Ms. Smith began her freshman year in the fall of 2004, her grandparents began visiting her regularly, making day trips from their home in the Berkshires. Often, Mr. Grinnell would meet them for lunch and a walk around campus.

“It was just good old-fashioned development work,” Mr. Grinnell says.

During one such meeting, he showed the couple Gordon’s new athletic complex, which featured a synthetic turf field and an all-weather track. But something was missing.

“My wife said, ‘Why don’t you have bleachers or seats?’” recalls Mr. Fowler. Mr. Grinnell explained that blasting through the granite below the field had cost far more than the college had anticipated, and Gordon had run out of money before it could build bleachers. At home games, fans would either stand on the sidelines or bring their own lawn chairs. Mr. and Mrs. Fowler offered to provide $300,000 for bleachers.

“That kind of got us going, and other things needed to be done,” Mr. Fowler says.

The couple’s next undertaking was to renovate the lobby of Frost Hall. “It looked like a morgue,” Mr. Fowler says.

He and his wife contributed close to $400,000 for updates, including antique oak furniture and artwork from dealers in the Cotswolds region of England. The Fowlers also gave approximately $75,000 to pay for a full-time recruiter in California. Last year, one prospective student from that state visited the campus during a November open-house weekend. This year, when two dozen would-be students showed up for that same event, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler were there to greet them.

As one gift followed another, Mr. Grinnell says he sometimes wondered where the college’s involvement with the Fowlers would go next.

“It was always like an onion, taking back the layers, wondering, ‘Is this real?’” he says. “In some ways they may have made up their minds they were going to be in a relationship with Gordon before we fully understood that. Dale would share with me: ‘These are my dreams, these are the things I want to do for Gordon.’”

In the summer of 2006, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler invited Mr. Carlberg and Mr. Grinnell to dinner in the Berkshires, where they explained their plan to leave a portion of their real-estate holdings to Gordon. The bequest is not legally binding, but Mr. Fowler says he and his wife would only revoke it if the college were to undergo a major change of direction.

Because Gordon does not know when it will receive the bequest, Mr. Carlberg says, it is not putting the gift on its books for another 30 years.

“It does pose some challenges, but in another sense, nothing has changed,” he says. “The downside is that out there in the great beyond, people think, ‘Gordon has all this money, I don’t need to give anymore.’” He hopes the Fowlers’ generosity will inspire others to contribute to the endowment.

Mr. and Mrs. Fowler set an important example, says Prashan De Visser, a scholarship student from Sri Lanka and president of the student council.

“In an age that’s all about making money and making it big for yourself, to see their generosity and their joy of giving, that is a good role model for students,” he says. “If I ever have the financial stability to give to the school, I’ll make it a priority.”

A Campus Presence

Mr. Fowler served for 12 years as a trustee of Westmont College, the Christian institution where he spent his freshman year, but felt disappointed by the way his service was acknowledged when he stepped down in 1985, and says the college failed to keep in touch with him.

Glen Adams, who was Westmont’s vice president for development from 1977 to 2001, says he had the impression that Mr. Fowler did not want to continue supporting Westmont in a significant way.

“Dale is an individualist and a very capable person with strong opinions about things,” Mr. Adams says. “I think those are all good qualities. There were probably just some differences of opinion along the way as to how things were done.” Still, he says, he was thrilled to learn of the Fowlers’ generosity to Gordon.

Mr. Fowler was invited to join Gordon’s Board of Trustees but declined. Members of the board, he says, traditionally rely on the chairman to convey their views to college administrators. “I can call the president anytime I feel like it,” he says.

While in Massachusetts, where they spend approximately half the year, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler often meet with Mr. Carlberg. In addition, Mr. Carlberg visits them in California several times a year.

“Whenever you have a donor who’s so deeply involved with the college, of course you must have people who are working with them to see their vision realized,” Mr. Carlberg says. “That means at least one of our staff has to be in almost daily contact with Dale and Ann.”

Megan Thompson, a senior from Pennsylvania and executive vice president of the student council, says the Fowlers’ eagerness to become part of Gordon and understand its culture and needs — for example, by attending chapel and meeting with students — has erased any concerns students might have had about the couple’s influence. “They have become a pretty strong presence on our campus,” she says. “They are generous not only with their money but also their time.”

Rini Cobbey, chair of the communication-arts department at Gordon, says she and other faculty members are accustomed to the idea that benefactors have pet projects. It is a fact of life at small colleges that depend on donors, she says. “From what I’ve seen,” she adds, “the Fowlers have certainly made some great contributions.”

The Fowlers have committed $2-million toward the Fowler Center, a new administration building that they envision as a replica of the mansion in Williamsburg, Va., that housed colonial governors. The Fowlers also plan to build a new residence hall and Chester’s Place, an addition to the student center that would resemble a New England tavern but serve coffee and hot cocoa instead of alcohol.

Yet Gordon’s Board of Trustees has made clear that it will not approve any additional building projects until its new science center, currently under construction, is completed. The college has raised $18.5-million toward the $30-million total cost. This fall, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler pledged $400,000 if the college raises $3.6-million from other sources to provide the full $21-million needed to complete phase one of the project, and they are discussing an additional gift to help finish the building.

“They’re great team players,” Mr. Grinnell says. “They realize the college is in a bit of a jam.”

He adds that Mr. Fowler’s strong opinions are an asset to Gordon because he carefully considers the college’s needs and offers valuable insights.

What’s most exciting, Mr. Grinnell says, is that with their new home so close to campus, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler can easily attend chapel, lectures, and concerts. “They were looking for a place where they could become part of the fabric of the community,” he says. The fund raiser envisions them becoming Gordon’s resident grandparents.

“I could see that happening,” Mr. Fowler says. As for his work at Gordon, he says, “I guess we will never run out of projects here.”