A golf lover’s $3.8 million gift to Dartmouth turned into a dispute

Several years before his death in 2002, at age 88, Robert T. Keeler drew up a will to make his intentions clear. His wife and family were his primary beneficiaries. Also on the list were his secretary and housekeeper, a church, seminary, and medical center, and Dartmouth College, his alma mater.

Keeler didn’t name a dollar amount for Dartmouth, choosing instead to leave a percentage of his estate, but he did specify how he wanted the money used: for the “sole purpose of upgrading and maintaining its golf course.” When Dartmouth asked for the flexibility to use the money for other purposes, the family said no.

Per their 2005 “statement of understanding,” the college was to send any money it didn’t need to maintain the course to the Robert T. Keeler charitable foundation, a nonprofit that supports children in need. That hasn’t happened. The college closed the Hanover Country Club in 2020, citing financial concerns, and has refused the foundation’s request to return the approximately $3.8 million that remains.

Dartmouth has also fought the foundation and estate’s request to be allowed to make their objections to a court. They’ve so far been denied.

The disagreement has triggered a 2½-year legal dispute between Dartmouth, Keeler’s estate and foundation, and the Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Unit, which is charged with protecting donors’ intentions.

It has also illustrated the limits of donors’ ability to control their charitable intentions, even when they spell out restrictions, as Keeler did.

With the blessing of the Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Unit, a circuit court judge ruled in February that Dartmouth can keep the $3.8 million and use it for “golf-related” purposes, such as the study and design of golf practice areas or administrative and equipment costs of the school varsity golf teams.

The case is now before the state Supreme Court. Keeler’s estate and foundation have asked the court to essentially reopen the modification request and give them the right to show why Dartmouth should be forced to return the money.

They believe they can show that Dartmouth didn’t close the golf course for financial reasons, which would meet the legal threshold for repurposing the money, but closed it because it wants to extract more value from the course by erecting housing and academic buildings on the course. The school’s strategic plan identifies the redevelopment of the course as a possibility.

The foundation…