A Rutgers Gift that Continues to Give

A generous bequest from a Scarlet Knights alumnus more than four decades ago supports student-athletes while allowing business students who manage the endowment to earn valuable hands-on experience.

Almost a century after David Bender graduated from Rutgers University, Gianna Glatz benefited from one of the many scholarships that Bender, a 1925 graduate, made possible. At Rutgers, Glatz SAS’21, GSE’23, made the most of the opportunity, earning academic awards and student-athlete honors as a field hockey goalie. “What he has done to support me will allow me to support others,” says Glatz, who is now a second grade teacher in Princeton.

Bender—an All-America lacrosse star and a football letter winner at Rutgers—coached at the university until the 1940s and later taught history at nearby Rahway High School. When he died in 1980, he left instructions for his $300,000 estate to create an endowment to go toward scholarships for student-athletes in eight Olympic sports: women’s gymnastics, field hockey, and tennis; and men’s golf, lacrosse, soccer, track and field, and wrestling. 

In 2020, that endowment, aided by a Rutgers Business School investment club run by students and advised by alumni who had known Bender, had grown to $4 million. The gift of $4 million from the David T. Bender Trust enables one student from each sport to receive a scholarship annually. Previously, more than $1 million in scholarships had been awarded by the Bender Trust, with more than 270 scholarships given out since 1981. 

In addition to student-athletes who have benefitted from scholarships, more than 1,100 Rutgers alumni who participated in Little Investment Bankers of Rutgers (LIBOR), a student investment group that helped manage the Bender Trust funds, have landed jobs on Wall Street. 

Greg Francfort, a 1979 engineering graduate who went on to a career in finance and is managing director of a Wall Street investment management firm, knew Bender well and later went on to partner with Ray Flood, a 1967 alumnus and attorney who also knew Bender, in advising the students investing the endowment. “Somebody gave David Bender a chance at Rutgers and he paid forward big time,” says Francfort, a trustee for the Bender Trust who established the trust’s connection with LIBOR. “So many people benefited from his willingness to give. That's what the David Bender story is all about.”

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