Alumna left $30 million to George School

A wealthy George School alumna who had already given the Quaker boarding school one of the largest gifts ever made to a private school has left it an additional $30 million.

Officials at the school in Newtown, Bucks County, announced the bequest of Barbara Dodd Anderson on Wednesday.

Anderson, a 1950 graduate who called George School "a second home," announced in 2007 that she was giving it $128.5 million. She died in November at 78 at her home in Fresno, Calif.

In all, school officials said, Anderson's donations total $165 million.

The school's trustees this month decided to use about half of Anderson's unrestricted bequest for the endowment, with the income targeted to improving faculty salaries. They now range from $32,562 for a teacher with a bachelor's degree to $64,137 for a veteran teacher with a master's.

The rest of the bequest will be applied to a fund-raising campaign for new athletic facilities.

School head Nancy Starmer said Anderson's gift would further the goals of the school's 2009 strategic plan, which called for improving teachers' compensation, and also would enable the school to accelerate plans to build athletic quarters, including a track-and-field facility, and make investments in the equestrian center.

"Our excitement about the gift and what it makes possible for George School is offset only by the deep sadness that we feel at the loss of a true friend and a humble and generous spirit who once again repaid the kindness and inspiration she found at George School in an extraordinary way," Starmer said.

When Anderson's 2007 gift was announced, she said it was meant to honor her father, David L. Dodd, an economist and professor at Columbia University Business School. Her father was a friend of the billionaire and philanthropist Warren Buffett. He also was an early investor in Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company based in Omaha, Neb., and put the shares in his daughter's name.

Anderson's large gift came as an irrevocable annuity trust designed to provide funds to George School over 20 years.

Each year, the school receives $5 million; of that, $4 million goes to the endowment, and the income is split between faculty salaries and student financial aid. The remaining $1 million is used for the annual fund, additional financial aid, and campus building projects.

Juliana Rosati, a George School spokeswoman, said Anderson's death did not alter the terms of the trust.

Anderson, a native New Yorker and former kindergarten teacher, said her devotion to the school went back to her girlhood. When her mother became ill, her father decided to send her to board at George School because he did not want her to be a latch-key child. Anderson said she was nurtured and supported by the faculty.

"That was a difficult time in my life," she once told school officials. "And my teachers not only responded to my interests in the classroom, but cared for me personally. George School became a second home for me."

Anderson's previous donations included $5 million in 2006 toward the school's environmentally friendly Learning Commons and library. In the fall of 2009, Anderson - by then battling dementia - returned to the campus. She was joined by Buffett for the dedication of the Mollie Dodd Anderson Library in honor of her book-loving granddaughter, then 12.

Founded in 1893 by the Religious Society of Friends, George School enrolls 539 students from across the country and the world. Tuition is $42,920 for boarding students and $30,850 for day students.