One classic example is Benjamin Franklin, who upon his death in 1790
invested £1000 (about $135,000 in today’s money) each for the cities of Boston and Philadelphia: three-quarters of the funds would be paid out after one hundred years, and the remainder after two hundred years. By 1990, when the final funds were distributed, the donation had grown to almost $5 million for Boston and $2.3 million for Philadelphia.
(From What We Owe The Future, p. 24. See notes (1.34) and (1.35) on the WWOTF website here for references. Franklin’s bequest is well-known but popular accounts are often slightly off in their details.)
Here’s an NYT article from 1990 about the fight over the allocation of the funds after they had grown for 200 years.
I’m not sure what was done ultimately done with them, but according to Wikipedia Boston used it to establish and fund a trade school (I think at both the 100- and 200-year marks), the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology.
One classic example is Benjamin Franklin, who upon his death in 1790
(From What We Owe The Future, p. 24. See notes (1.34) and (1.35) on the WWOTF website here for references. Franklin’s bequest is well-known but popular accounts are often slightly off in their details.)
Here’s an NYT article from 1990 about the fight over the allocation of the funds after they had grown for 200 years.
I’m not sure what was done ultimately done with them, but according to Wikipedia Boston used it to establish and fund a trade school (I think at both the 100- and 200-year marks), the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology.