Gifts to Transform the World

Jeff Silverman’s Uncle Ted asked him several times when he was a boy what he wanted to do after college.

“I was frustrated that I didn’t know,” says Silverman, who read biographies to find a career he liked. He read of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Ford, Madame Curie, and more. But when he read of financier Bernard Baruch — who had a private train and a hunting lodge in Virginia — he was impressed. “Gee, I could do this,” thought Silverman — who was right.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1968, he worked at Walston & Company, a Boston brokerage firm. Next he headed to Chicago, where for 10 years he was a trader at a series of small firms. Then in 1980, he became a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, where he now trades commodities.

“It’s important when you’re doing well to be able to give back,” says Silverman, who recently gave MIT two career development professorships, one in economics and one to be determined. “It’s important to give while you’re still alive and can enjoy the results of doing some things that are transforming for the Institute and the world.”

He also made a gift to endow Jerusalem 2050 — a project focused on making Jerusalem a place of peace by the year 2050. Silverman, whose gift will underwrite the entire project, feels the Israelis and Palestinians need a vision of what peace would look like. “The project resonated with me because it seemed to be a way to take an esoteric intangible, like peace, and make it concrete and visible.”

He got interested in the project when he made a trip to Israel with members of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Force, a charitable group that supports the well-being of Israeli soldiers. Silverman later helped create Adopt a Battalion, a program to improve those soldiers’ lives by providing them with libraries, gyms, computer cafes, and video games.

“I’ve tried to do good for society for many years, and I’m recycling that good back into the community so there will be more people in the future also able to do good for themselves and for others.”

by Liz Karagianis

On Topic: alumni/ae, giving