Both the Schultz and Patterson families have found that charitable trusts created with Princeton have performed well through ups and downs of the market. Such trusts, which provide payments as high as 7 percent to the donor and beneficiaries as long as they live, are particularly attractive when interest rates are low. Princeton’s trusts benefit from the expertise of some of the same firms that manage the University’s endowment.
Nancy R. Schultz W51 P76 P79
The late Frederick H. Schultz ’51 established a charitable trust more than 25 years ago. It was a reliable source of income for him, and when he died in 2009 the payments passed to his wife, Nancy R. Schultz. Now, with the recent downturn in the economy and diminished income from other investments, “His life income gift to Princeton is one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Nancy said. “The investment portfolio for the trust with Princeton has good people managing it. They have made very wise decisions.”
Schultz was a prominent civic leader and investment banker in Jacksonville, Florida. Throughout his lifetime he was dedicated to public service and education. He served as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve System under Paul A. Volcker ’49 H82 and as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. His work on behalf of public education in Florida was so much appreciated that in 1992 the state legislature waived its law against naming a state building for a living person just so the University of North Florida could rename its Education and Human Services Building Frederick H. Schultz Hall.
Fred and Nancy raised four children, including two Princeton alumni—Frederick H. Schultz ’76 and Clifford C. Schultz ’79. A loyal supporter of Annual Giving, in 1986 he established the Frederick H. Schultz Class of 1951 Professorship of International Economic Policy, and Volcker was the first incumbent. When the Schultz gift is realized, the funds will support the Schultz professorship.
Margaret P. Patterson P94 P98 P98
When the Very Rev. Margaret P. Patterson P94 P98 P98 established a charitable remainder trust in 2000, she designated her gift for the creation of the Patterson Family Endowed Student Aid Fund, in honor of her children—Elizabeth Patterson ’94 (whose husband is classmate R. Adrian Clarke), Harriet A. Patterson ’98, and J. Dwight Patterson Jr. ’98.
“At Princeton my children made lifelong friends and enjoyed intellectual opportunities that shaped their lives,” Patterson said. “As a single parent and an Episcopal priest, I would not have been able to send them to the University without the wonderful financial aid program, so when I had the chance, I was eager to create a scholarship fund.”
Patterson was the second woman in the United States to become dean of an Anglican cathedral. After graduating from Sweet Briar College, she pursued a career in religious education. Divorced in 1986, she was chair of the Religion Department at the Episcopal School of Dallas for 15 years. “Finally, when women were able,” she says, she became an Episcopal priest, and in 1995 she was elected dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint John in Wilmington, Delaware. In 2005 she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she works as a hospice chaplain.
With a wealth of Princeton connections, Patterson feels “totally a part of the Princeton family,” she says—through her children and their father, J. Dwight Patterson ’63; his brother, George D. Patterson III ’56 *67; her brother, Ernest D. B. Pittman ’71; her former brother-in-law, James W. Halloran ’56; and her nephew Edward H. Pittman ’87 and niece Elizabeth C. Halloran ’87.
Princeton’s charitable trusts offer a flexible way for alumni and friends to give back to Princeton for all it means to them, while receiving the benefits of shrewd financial management.
